THE 



WAT TO LIFE 



BY 

THOMAS GUTHRIE, D. D., 



E. B. TREAT & COMPANY 

Office of The Treasury Magazine 
241*243 West 23d Street 




3iooS 
•05 



CONTENTS. 

CHAP. pam 

L — Mam's Great Dctt < 9 

II.— The World a Lib , 24 

LH. — One Thing Needful 41 

IV. — The Review 56 

V. — No Delay 10 

VI. — The Unchangeable Word ... , 86 

VTL— The Work of God 102 

VTH.— The Lamb of God 120 

IX.— The Love of Christ . .« 184 

X.— The Example of Christ , . . 150 

XI. — Reconciled and Saved 165 

XII.— The Christian's Faith 179 

XHL— The Christian's Faith. . . 194 



8 CONTENTS. 

CHAP. 

XIV.— The Christian's Prayers 207 

XV.— The Christian's Growth 223 

XVL— The Christian's Strength 238 

XVII. — The Christian's Work. 261 

XVIII. — The Christian's Triumph 264 

XIX. — The Christian's Patience 2cfl> 

XX.— The Christian's Lots. 294 

XXL— The Christian's Death. IIS 



Pan'* €mt 



Lay hold on eternal life. — 1st Timothy vi. 12. 

^ \ 

On the deck of a foundering vessel stood a negro 
Blave — the last man on board, he was about to step 
into the life-boat at her last trip. She was already 
loaded almost to the gunwale ; to the water edge. 
Observed to bear in his arms what seemed a heavy 
bundle, the boat's crew, who had difficulty to keep her 
afloat in such a roaring sea, refused to receive him 
unless he came unencumbered , and alone. He pressed 
to his bosom what he carried in his arms, and seemed 
loth to part with it. They insisted. He had his 
choice — either to leap in and leave that behind him, 
or throw it in and stay to perish. He opened its 
folds ; and there, warmly wrapt round, lay two child- 
ren whom their father, his master, had committed to 
his care. He kissed them ; bade the sailors carry his 
affectionate farewell to his master, and tell how he had 
faithfully fulfilled his charge ; and then, lowering the 
children into the boat which pushed off, the dark man 
stood alone on that sinking deck — and bravely went 
down with the foundering ship. Such arms slavery 
binds ; such kind hearts it crushes ! A noble and 
touching example that of the love that seeketh not her 

(9) 



10 



man's great duty. 



own ! yet it shews how the means of salvation may be 
inadequate to the occasion. So no poor sinner need 
perish, nor lose eternal life. There is room for all in 
Christ. Our cry to the perishing, Come to Jesus ? 
Come ; " yet there is room." 

While there is eternal life in the gospel sufficient 
for all, none are specially excluded from its benefits. 
Those only are excluded who exclude themselves, and 
refuse to be saved on God's own terms. His procla- 
mation of mercy to a lost, rebel world, is clogged with 
no exceptions. After our brave men had crushed that 
terrible revolt which some years ago shook our Indian 
Empire to its foundations, and filled many of our homes 
with grief, an amnesty was proclaimed, but not to all. 
Some were by name excluded from its grace ; and, as 
might have been expected, these desperate men fought 
it out to the last in the fastnesses and deadly jungles 
of Nepaul. They did not come in to accept the am- 
nesty. There was no reason why they should. It 
was not for them. Heads of the revolt, and guilty of 
cold-blooded murders, as well as of the blackest treach- 
ery, there was no hope of mercy held out to them ; and 
so, standing to their arms, they resolved to spin out 
their lives to the last thread, and sell them at the 
dearest price. What a contrast to this, the gospel I 
Whatever be men's sins and crimes, none are excluded, 
by name or by character, from the amnesty which God 
proclaims, from the benefits of eternal life, " Whoso- 
ever cometh unto me," says Jesus, " I will in nowise 
cast out ; " on no account ; for no crimes — no depth 
of guilt — no length of resistance to my gracious offers ; 



man's great duty. 



11 



let him come with all the sins on his head which an} 
man ever committed or it is possible for man to com- 
mit ; let him come in life's last worthless hour, I will 
not turn away from him — from the vilest, hoariest sin- 
ner ; I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked — 
nor am I willing that any should perish, but that all 
should come to me and live. Thus, though the words 
of my text are addressed to a man of God, they admit 
of a wider than their first application ; and, therefore, 
to those that are not, as well as to those that are, men 
of God, in his great name we address this call, Lay 
hold on eternal life. There is enough of it to supply 
the wants of all. No child of Adam stands excluded 
from its precious blessings. 

I. Consider our need of eternal life. 

Greatest gift of God ! eternal life is deliverance 
from eternal death, the curse of a broken law, and the 
doom of a burning hell. Eternal life is eternal bless- 
edness — the pardon of sin's guilt, and freedom from its 
tyrannous power ; the pleasures of a pure heart, and 
the enjoyment of peace with God ; joy without any 
bitter admixture, and riches without wings ; health 
that never sickens, life that never dies, and a glory 
hereafter that never fades away ; perfect holiness in 
the likeness, and perfect happiness in the bosom of 
God. These are what we need ; and how great is our 
need of them ? 

How great our need, was once well expressed by 
Rowland Hill. A preacher, who threw his whole sou] 
into his work, he was challenged for the Tehemence of 
1* 



12 



man's great duty. 



his voice and manner. Unlike some whose dull, cold, 
tinimpassioned manner in the pulpit, led an infidel to 
say that he doubted whether the preachers themselves 
believed in a hell, he spoke like a man who saw the 
people hang over perdition and heard their long, 
piercing shrieks, as one after another they lost their 
hold, and dropped into the fiery gulf. Exception be- 
ing taken, as I have said, to his energy and vehemence, 
Hill told how he had once seen a vast bank of earth, 
below which some men were at work, suddenly rend 
asunder ; and leaving its bed, precipitate itself for- 
ward to bury them alive before they could utter a cry, 
or move a foot to escape. And who then, he asked, 
found fault with me, because, in my anxiety to save 
them, my cries for help were loud enough to call the 
neighborhood to the rescue, and be heard a long mile 
away. Left there, they perished, miserably perished — 
needing what God, not man, always is, " a very present 
help in trouble." The moral of the story is very plain. 
These poor men, buried below a mass of earth, gasping 
for air, choking for want of breath, in instant danger 
of perishing, did not stand in greater, nor so great, 
need of strong arms to dig them out, as all men do of 
eternal life. 

Sin has brought death into this world ; and we are 
all of us involved in the calamity — buried in the ruins 
of the fall. (We may not have sinned as others have 
done ; that is very possible. But in vain the Pharisee 
thanks God that he is " not as this publican ; 99 in vain 
the self-righteous, shrinking from the touch of some 
low and loathsome outcast, says, Stand aside, I am ho* 



MAN 8 GREAT DUTT. 



13 



lier than thou. Ah, pity rather than pride is the feel 
ing with which the best men regard the worst ; con- 
scious, as they are, that they would have been no better 
than others, had they been left to themselves, and ex- 
posed to as great temptations ! All by nature lying 
under the same sentence of condemnation, pride, which 
is not for angels, still less befits felons — those whose 
crimes have brought them to a common prison, and 
doomed them to a common death. 

But, though we have sinned less than others, we can- 
not be saved by merit ; even as, thank God, though 
we have sinned more than others, we may be saved by 
mercy. How idle to talk of other men being greater 
sinners than we are — to flatter and deceive ourselves 
with that ! He drowns as surely who has his head, 
beneath one inch of water, as he who, with a mill stone 
hung round his neck, has sunk a hundred fathoms 
down. Let the strain of the tempest come, and the 
ship that has one bad link in her cable, as certainly 
goes ashore to be dashed to pieces on the rocks, as an 
other that has twenty bad. It is, no doubt, by re- 
peated strokes of the woodman's axe that the oak, 
bending slowly to fate, bows its proud head and falls 
to the ground, and it is by long dropping that water 
hollows the hardest stone. But those who speak of 
great and little, of few or many sins, seem to forget 
that man's ruin was the work of one moment, and of 
one sin. The weight of only one sin sank this great 
world into perdition ; and now all of us, all men, lie 
under the same sentence of condemnation. Extin- 
guishing every hope of salvation through works, and 



14 



man's great duty. 



sounding as ominous of evil in men's ears as the crack 
ing of ice beneath our feet, or the roar of an ava- 
lanche, or the grating of a keel on the sunken reef, or 
the hammer that wakens the felon from dreams of life 
and liberty, that sentence is this — " Cursed is every 
one that continueth not in all things written in th? 
book of the law to do them." 

Such is our position ; and instead of shutting our 
eyes to it, like the foolish ostrich that hides her head 
in the bush when the hunters are at her heels, it is well 
to know and to face it. We are either lost or not lost. 
If not, by all means " sleep on and take your rest." 
I should be sorry to disturb you. If the waves dance 
and play round your ship as she ploughs through a sil- 
ver sea ; if gentle zephyrs fill her sails ; if no sound 
is heard but the song of the watch on deck, and the 
gentle dash of mimic billows as they break on your 
bows, lulling to slumber and happy dreams ; then, hap- 
py voyagers, with a bright moon riding the calm heaven 
. above, and wide sea-room below, " sleep on and take 
your rest." But if, instead of this, a shock has come 
that makes your ship shiver from stem to stern, if hur- 
rying feet tread the deck overhead, if signal guns are 
flashing and booming through the darkness, if the rat- 
tling cordage tells that they lower the boats, if men, 
pale with fear, rush into the cabin to cry, We sink ; 
and if, when we leap from bed on the floor, the water, 
rushing through many a yawning seam, splashes on our 
naked feet, the time is not for sleep — but for instant 
action, and such cries as this, sirs, what shall I do to 
be saved ! Who can miss the application of this to 



man's gbeat duty. 



15 



our condition ? With that curse of a broken law im- 
pending over us, in danger of perishing every moment 
so long as we are out of Christ, how should we cry, 
Save me, I perish ; and give immediate heed to the call, 
that Christ, seeing our danger, rises from his throne 
in heaven to sound down, Lay hold of eternal life. 

II. Consider how we obtain eternal life. 

Nothing in one sense more difficult, yet in another 
Basier — a wish, a word, a look, and it is ours ! I have 
read the story of a captive who, immured in Austrian 
prison, with no tool but a nail in his bleeding hands 
wrought night by night for twelve weary months, to 
mine its solid walls. Agitated by alternate hopes and 
fears, he at length accomplished his task ; and then, 
on a dark, blustering night, by means of a rope that he 
had twisted, he swung himself over the dizzy depth ; 
and, reaching the ground, swam the moat, and was 
free ! What will a man not do, and not dare, for dear 
life and sweet liberty ! But for eternal life — for the 
precious liberty of the sons of God, you have no such 
time to wait ; nor hardships to suffer ; nor desperate 
risks to run. You have only to wish, and, as if struck 
by a magician's rod, the walls of your prison house 
open. You are free. 

During long years of care, and fears, and harassing 
thought, how do many toil for wealth ; to be rich I 
And how often do their efforts fail ! and, even when 
they have succeeded, how have we seen fortune, in a 
fit of caprice, suddenly desert her favorite j and his 
riches take themselves wings and flee awayl But 



16 



man's great duty. 



now, at this very moment, far happier than any wor 
shipper of Mammon, you may enrich yourselves with 
wealth such as the fairy wand of old story never gave 
its possessor — when, only waving it, the dust of the 
road changed into gold, and the fountain, in place of 
water, sent up a jet of precious stones ; every liquid 
drop, as it leapt into the air and fell back into the 
marble cistern, turning into a diamond, or ruby, or 
pearl. [Again, what tortures have I seen people pa- 
tiently endure, through a long protracted illness, to 
regain in health heaven's best earthly boon ? But you 
have only to join the crowd, like the woman of old, to 
press through the throng, and lay your eager, trembling 
finger on the dusty hem of a Saviour's robe, to possess 
a health that never sickens ; and is proof alike against 
the sharpest arrows of disease, and the dart of death. 
Again, see yonder, amid the smoke of battle and in the 
throat of the deadly breach, how an ambitious soldier, 
[ bleeding from many wounds, fights his way upward to 
win an earthly crown ! wins it, but lives not to wear 
it. He is just seen on the top of the fire-girdled bat- 
tlement ; he has just time to wave his bloody sword ; 
and ere his less fortunate comrades have time to envy 
him his honours, the mark of a foeman's rifle, he is 
struck through the heart ; and, reeling back, falls 
headlong from the heights of fortune into the ditch 
below — dead as a stone. But you have no such risks 
to run ; no such dangers to face. In the quiet house 
of God — there or anywhere else — now — at this mo- 
ment — you have only to reach out the hand of faith, 
and it grasps the crown ; a crown of glory that fadeth 



man's great duty 



17 



^____not away. One short step carried the thief, and may 
carry you, from eternal death to eternal life. So near 
at all times are we to heaven or to hell. What a 
solemn position! 

Do you ask, What shall we do to inherit eternal life ; 
to be saved ? I reply with Paul, Believe in the Lord 
Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved ; but reject him 
whom I offer, and you may be damned, — lost this hour, 
and lost for ever. The gift of God, say the Scriptures, 
is eternal life, through Jesus Christ our Lord. He 
purchased it for us by his sinless obedience, his suffer- 
ings, his atoning death. For that great end his infant 
head was pillowed on straw, and his dying head on 
thorns ; for that great end, his lowly cradle was a 
manger, and his death-bed was a bloody cross ; and 
what it cost him so much to buy, his Father is ready 
to bestow "without money and without price." He 
gives it for the asking ; nay, more, much more than 
that, rare thing in the experience of the poor and 
needy, he presses his bounty on our acceptance. 

On these streets, I have seen the poor hanging on N 
the steps of the rich, and refusing to be ordered away ; 
to move pity, laying bare their sores ; and holding out 
their skinny hands to implore men's charity. But 
whoever saw the rich following the poor, with a hand 
filled with gold ; pressing money on their acceptance ; 
stopping them ; entreating, beseeching, imploring them 
to take it ? Yet thus, to the amazement both of angels 
and devils, God does with you, in offering his Son ; and 
through him, the gift of eternal life. The truth is, he 
knows how wretched our fate if we refuse his mercy. 



18 



man's great duty. 



He has looked on the fire that never has been quench- 
ed ; he has heard the wail of those that are for ever 
lost ; and as a father over his poor prodigal, a mother 
over her fallen daughter, he yearns over you — crying 
Turn ye, turn ye, why will ye die. 

III. Consider more particularly what we have to do, 
to obtain eternal life. 

Do 1 It is not to make ourselves worthy of it ; nor 
to attempt to merit it ; nor to wait till we are holy 
before we come to Christ. Salvation is not of works, 
but of faith. " Not by works of righteousness which 
we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, 
by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the 
Holy Ghost ; which he shed on us abundantly, through 
Jesus Christ our Saviour, that, being justified by his 
grace, we should be made heirs according to the hope 
of eternal life — this is a faithful saying." We have 
nothing to do then, but to believe ; to open the door 
and receive him into our hearts, who is knocking 
there. Jesus is ready to come in, as a king into his 
palace — followed by penitence, humility, goodness, 
meekness, temperance, hope, peace, joy, charity ; a 
long, shining train of graces. It is only by the hand 
of faith that we can lay hold of Christ. Do you say, 
But I cannot believe ! I reply, true ! you cannot of 
yourself, for, No man, says Jesus, can come unto me 
except the Father which hath sent me, draw him. 
Still, if you ask faith of God, he will certainly give 
it ; working it in you by the power of his Holy Spirit. 
For what argument is at once so unanswerable, and so 



man's great duty. 



19 



3omfortable as Christ's. " If ye, then, being evil, kno w 
how to give good gifts to your children, how much 
more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit 
to them that ask him." Thus, by the aid of the Spirit, 
and through the exercise of faith, you are to lay hold 
the Saviour ; and laying hold on him, though it 
were in the hour of most imminent destruction, and in 
the very jaws of death, you lay hold of life — of eternal 
life. 

In his voyage to the Polar Eegions, Kane, when 
involved with his brave companions among broken 
ice fields, found himself placed between two mighty, 
moving bergs. Each a towering, floating mountain of 
ice, they rapidly approached to give battle — threaten- 
ing to crush his ship between them, like an empty shell. 
The danger was imminent ; destruction seemed inevi- 
table. There was not a breath of wind to fill their 
sails ; and their ship, as if herself paralyzed with ter- 
ror, lay still on the water — waiting her doom. At that 
moment of terrible suspense, when no power of theirs 
could extricate them, or clear their way through the 
ice that choked the only path of escape, just then, a 
low, water- washed berg, set in motion by some strange 
current, came driving up from the southward. If they 
could follow in its wake, it might make a way for 
them through the floating ice ; and they might yet be 
saved — plucked from the very jaws of destruction. 
Their despair was now turned into hope. It nears 
them ; it is passing them. They seize the opportunity ; 
and, God blessing the attempt, succeed in planting an 
anchor on its slope — holding on it by a whale line. 



20 



man's great duty. 



*It was an anxious moment," says Dr. Kane, 'our 
noble tow-horse hauled us bravely on j the spray dash- 
ing over his windward flanks, and his forehead plough- 
ing up the lesser ice as in scorn." The two great ice 
mountains, whirling on their axes, and roaring, grind- 
ing through the sea, encroach on the ship as it advan- 
ces ; they drew nearer, and still nearer, to each other ; 
the channel is now narrowed to forty feet ; another 
moment and their fate is sealed. With the prompti- 
tude of sailors, they fly to the rigging and brace the 
yards to clear the ice-walls. They pass clear — saved 
as by the skin of their teeth ; and " never," writes Dr. 
Kane, " did men acknowledge with more gratitude their 
merciful deliverance from a wretched death." A strik- 
ing story ; and yet but an imperfect illustration of our 
salvation from eternal death, by laying hold on Christ. 
He comes from heavenward ; a Saviour in our great 
peril, and hour of need. By your faith lay hold on 
nim ; by your hope cast anchor on him ; and you are 
saved. Through the raging wrath of God ; through 
the perils of temptation ; through the closing jaws of 
death, he will open you a triumphant way ; till, safe in 
heaven, with harp in hand, and more gratitude of heart 
than the rescued seamen, you " acknowledge your mer- 
ciful deliverance" from a more than wretched, even 
from eternal death. 

IV. Consider when we are to lay hold on eternal life — 

When — but now ? If the body is in great danger 
and means of safety and escape are offered, there is no 
occasion to press them on men ; to cry, lay hold on 



man's great duty. 



21 



life, or say, do it now. In such circumstances, how 
does a man improve each moment, and clutch at life ? 
I only wish I saw people as eager to be saved from 
hell, as I once saw a man to be saved from drowning. 
It was at yonder ferry. Procrastination, the ruin of 
souls, was almost his death. The time was up ; the 
bell was rung ; the gangway withdrawn ; the boat in 
motion ; when, after too many delays, he came running 
along the pier, and, deaf to the cries of warning, took 
a bold and desperate spring to catch our bulwark. 
He caught it, but lost his hold ; fell backwards ; and 
went down instantly — engulphed in the roaring sea. 
Sucked out by the receding wave, he rose to the sur- 
face a good way off. And though it was a blessed 
sight to see his head emerge from the water, every eye 
was still anxiously fixed on him. He floated on his 
back, but could not swim ; and therefore must soon 
perish. And he had perished ; but that then one, 
bearing a life-buoy aloft in his hand, came rushing 
down the pier at the top of his speed. Anxiety was 
now wound up to the highest pitch. Shall he save 
him ? He stops ; and with the spray of the stormy 
sea flying in his face, takes aim ; now he bends like a 
bow ; and then, rising to the spring, with herculean 
arm he sends the life-buoy spinning through the air, 
away over the waves, to the drowning man. What a 
moment of suspense for him ; for us — the on-lookers ! 
Well thrown by man, and well directed by a watchful 
providence, it fell right over his sinking head. With 
what joy he caught it ! How he laid hold of it ! 
Never lover embraced lever with such eager, happy 



22 



man's great duty. 



arms. I saw Mm holding on, pulled from a watery 
grave ; and thought, Would God, that poor sinners, 
that every man ready to perish laid hold as eagerly of 
eternal life ? I gave God thanks that he was saved ! 
He might have been damned if he had been drowned. 
Besides, I rejoice to think how happy that night his 
wife and children to have him safe at home ; and how 
bright the home which held a living father, rather 
than a widow stunned with grief, and children weeping 
by a cold, livid corpse. 

But would you now lay hold on Christ, all the angels 
in heaven would sing, and all the bells in heaven would 
ring as the glad tidings were told, and your Father 
cried, Prepare a mansion, make ready a crown! for 
this my son that was dead is alive again, that was lost 
is found. 

u Thus joy abounds in paradise 
Among the hosts of heaven, 
Soon as the sinner quits his sins, 
Repents and is forgiven." 

In the name of him who purchased it, and offers it, 
and urges you to accept of it, I intreat you to lay hold 
of eternal life. He promises it now — to-day ; but not 
to-morrow. The angels hovered, on wings of aston- 
ishment, over a Saviour's lowly cradle, and around his 
bloody cross ; may they not be as much astonished to 
see a man refuse a crown of glory as they were to see 
the Son of God wearing the crown of thorns ? Oh, 
what would the damned, the devils give for the offer 
which you hesitate to accept of? Why destroy your 



man's great duty. 



23 



souls ? Why scorn the love of Jesus ? Why provoke 
a loving and long-suffering God to say, My spirit shall 
not any longer strive with that man — his blood be on 
his own head — he is joined to his idols, let him alone. 

Happy day, happy day, 

When Jesus washed my sins away. 

Happy day this, indeed, were you to lay hold on 
eternal life now ! His head lies on a downy pillow 
whose heart is at peace with God. Light, be it or- 
phan's or widow's lot, that of poverty, or bereavement, 
or disappointment, is the heaviest cross, sweet the bit- 
terest cup, and calm in life's stormiest hour, the soul of 
him who has his sins forgiven — having laid hold of 
eternal life. Accept it then so long as it is in your 
offer ; seize it so long as it is in your reach. Scatter 
money in a crowd, how they scramble for it ; offer 
bread to the starving, how greedily they seize it ; 
throw a rope to the drowning, how he eagerly grasps 
it! With like eagerness and earnestness may the 
Spirit of God help you to lay hold on Christ ; and, 
having got hold of him, to hold on — till, amid a 
crowd of saints ready to receive you, you are brought 
ashore, safely landed in the heavenly kingdom. 



" Thy calf, Samaria, hath cast thee off."— Hosba viii. 5. 

" He walked in the ways of Jeroboam, son of Nebat, 
who made Israel to sin." — " Howbeit, from the ways 
of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, who made Israel to 
sin, he departed not." — " He did that which was evil 
in the sight of the Lord, and walked in the ways of 
Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin." 
So, ringing changes on " Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, 
who made Israel to sin," runs the history of successive 
kings in Israel. Thus, while some men live in their 
good deeds, and like a beautiful insect, or a delicate 
moss preserved in a mass of golden, aromatic amber 
seem to lie embalmed in the memory of their worth, 
others live in their sins. So did this Jeroboam, the 
son of Nebat. His sins were the salt wherewith he 
was salted. 

His history is most instructive. It illustrates the 
folly of those who count it a matter of indifference 
what is the religious character of rulers, whether su- 
preme or subordinate. It shews us how one master 
mind can tell on the minds of others ; and how a man's 
soul leaves its impress, like a thing stamped in wax or 
struck in iron, on the soul of a nation ; and how that 



THE WORLD Jl LIB, 



25 



impression will remain long years after Ms body is 
mouldered into dust. The truth is, that no man or 
woman, however poor their circumstances, or mean 
their lot, are without their influence ; like an electric 
spark passing from link to link, that runs flashing 
down the chain of successive generations. Indeed, a 
man's life is as immortal as his soul ; and by its influ- 
ence though dead, he yet speaketh and worketh. For 
example : Have you family worship ? You have. I 
congratulate you. But why have you this altar? 
Your father had it ; and his father had it ; and so, 
succeeding to this heir-loom, in a sense, and in part, at 
least, you owe the ornament and palladium of your 
house to some remote ancestor of whom you know 
nothing at all. Thus men live after they are dead. 
Outliving our memory, and more enduring than any 
monument of brass or marble, our example may prove 
like the circle that rises round the sinking stone, and, 
growing wider and wider, embraces a larger and larger 
sphere, till it dies in gentle wavelets on the distant 
beach. It reaches a distant shore ; your example a 
distant time. 

Take care, then, how you live — warned by the story 
of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, to whose case my text 
alludes. Other things besides consumption, and lun- 
acy, and various maladies our flesh is heir to, are he- 
reditary. Example of that, Jeroboam's sin descended 
to his children ; and was transmitted like an entail 
from sire to son. More than that, it stuck like the 
malaria of a virulent disease to the very walls of his 
oalace ; it infected all his successors, and from the 
2 



26 



THE WORLD A LIE. 



throne spread its deadly influence to the poorest and 
most distant cottages of the land. His sin is set be- 
fore us in the text ; but before applying these words 
to ourselves, let me 

I. More fully explain the expression, " Thy calf, Sa- 
maria," or, Israel, " hath cast thee off." 

Jeroboam was a servant of Solomon. One day — 
for what purpose and on what errand we are not in- 
formed — he left Jerusalem ; and on reaching a lonely 
part of the road, was met by Ahijah the Shilonite. 
Suddenly the prophet seized him ; and laying hold of 
a garment that he happened to wear that day for the 
first time, rent it in twelve pieces — Jeroboam's sur* 
prize, and reverence for the man of God, perhaps, pre- 
venting him offering any resistance. Of these he gave 
ten to the astonished warrior, saying, " Thus saith the 
Lord, the God of Israel, Behold, I will rend the king- 
dom out of the hand of Solomon, and will give ten 
tribes to thee ; because that they have forsaken me, 
and have worshipped Ashtoreth, and Chemosh, and 
Milcom, and have not walked in the ways of my ser- 
vant David ; and I will take thee, and thou shalt reign 
according to all that thy soul desireth, and shalt be 
king over Israel ; and it shall be if thou wilt obey and 
hearken unto all that I command thee, and keep my 
statutes, and my commandments, I will be with thee 
and make thee a sure house." Having said so, Ahijah 
vanished. Well, time rolled on, bringing many changes 
with it ; and among others, Solomon died, and Reho- 
boam, his son, occupied— not filled — his father's &rone. 



THE WORLD A LIB. 



27 



The son of a wise man, of the wisest of men, he was 
himself a fool. To support the splendour of his fath- 
er's reign, the people had been ground down by heavy 
taxes ; and tired of the burden, they embraced the 
opportunity of a change of government to say to Re- 
hoboam, " Your father made our yoke heavy ; make it 
lighter." They desired, and indeed demanded a re- 
form. Disaffection was abroad ; a storm was brewing 
in the political atmosphere ; and the crisis had come 
that required a calm head, and a clear eye, and an iron 
hand at the helm of the state. But a blind pilot stands 
at the wheel. Rehoboam is not the man for such a 
time. Turning his back on his father's grey-haired 
counsellors, he had surrounded himself with hot-headed, 
inexperienced youths ; and listening to their advice, 
he returns the people this insolent, this insane answer, 
" My father made your yoke heavy, I will make it 
heavier ; my little finger shall be heavier than my 
father's loins. He chastised you with whips, I will 
chastise you with scorpions." Madman ! he flung a 
flaming torch into a magazine of combustibles. No 
wonder at the result ! Lashed into fury by this con- 
temptuous refusal of their demands, the nation rose in 
rebellion — crying, " To your tents, Israel ; David, 
see to thy house ! " They burst asunder the bands of 
authority ; and leaving only two tribes to stand by the 
house of David, the other ten broke away ; and bore 
Jeroboam forward to the throne of Israel on the grand, 
resistless wave of a popular revolution. The hour, and 
the man had come. Ahijah's prophecy was fulfilled. 
The great English dramatist says — 



28 



THE WORLD A LIB. 



" Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown." 

So Jeroboam found ; very soon found. For Ae was 
nardly seated on the throne, when a political difficulty 
arose — and that a very serious one. The Mosaic law 
required every male to go up three times each year to 
Jerusalem. An astute and sagacious politician, Jero- 
boam foresaw how this custom might be attended with 
dangerous results. He thus reasoned, If the people- 
go up three times a year to Jerusalem — the place, not 
only of the temple, but of Rehoboam's palace and fam- 
ily — when the blush of my popularity is over, and the 
fervour of their zeal abates, then, as a river returns to 
its ancient bed, this fickle multitude may return to 
their first love ; and deserting me and mine, once more 
attach themselves to a house around which so many 
noble and patriotic associations are clustered. 

Jeroboam was not the man to meet this difficulty 
aright. A stranger to the faith which is as a best bow- 
er anchor to Church or State in a roaring storm, he 
yielded to that " fear of man, which bringeth a snare." 
He did what, no doubt, the world had thought a clever 
thing. Setting up one calf in Bethel, and another in 
Dan, in opposition to, and in imitation of the cherubim, 
he sent forth this edict : " Let him that sacrificeth, kiss 
the calves " — go and worship these. He hoped thus to 
succeed in arresting the tide of worshippers that would 
otherwise have set towards Jerusalem year by year. 
He did succeed. Fatal success! It brought down 
ruin on his house and government, and was followed 
bv results which should teach our statesmen — whether 



THE WORLD A LIE. 



2$ 



they manage affairs at home or abroad — that no policy 
in the end shall thrive which traverses the word of 
God ; that that never can be politically right, which is 
morally and religiously wrong. Jeroboam and his 
family learned this to their cost. The clever policy by 
which he was so dexterously to escape a difficulty which 
he ought to have met in faith and cast on God, not 
only failed, but ruined his short-lived dynasty, and 
brought down God's heaviest judgments on an unhappy 
land. Hardly had his son taken his father's place, 
when Baasha rose and hurled him from the throne ; 
and with that thirst of blood which to this day marks 
the oriental, this upstart slew every man, woman, and 
child belonging to the royal family. There was not a 
living creature spared that had a drop of Jeroboam's 
blood in his veins. And then, amid the silence that 
reigned over this scene of ruthless massacre, the voice 
of God in providence was heard, saying, " Thy calf, 
Jeroboam, hath cast thee off!" 

What the "calf" did to the monarch, it did to the 
people — here called Samaria. Following the steps of 
their king, they apostatized from God, and turned their 
backs on his temple. Then judgment succeeded judg- 
ment ; and one trouble breaking on the back of ano- 
ther, the land had no rest. The commonwealth sank 
beneath the weight of its idolatry. I have seen a rock 
so rent and scattered by some vehement explosion, that 
not a fragment of it could be found. So was this great 
kingdom rent asunder. The ten tribes were scattered 
abroad ; and though they have been sought east, west 
north, and south, all the wide world over, there is no 



so 



THE WORLD A LI . 



certain remnant of them now found on the face of the 
earth. A broken, bleeding band, they left the land of 
Israel to go into banishment, and be lost for ages or for 
ever ; and over the two idols that they left behind 
without a solitary worshipper at their deserted shrine, 
again the voice of God in providence, might be heard 
saying, " Thy calf, Samaria, hath cast thee off." 

II. Let us now make a practical use of these words ; 
and by way of warning and instruction, I observe, 

1. That the sentiment of my text is illustrated by 
the case of those who put riches in the place of Gor 1 

You have seen a piece of iron drawn to a magnet ; 
now what that magnet is to iron, gold is to many. It 
exerts an omnipotent, at least an irresistible attraction 
over them. Let the news go forth of the discovery of 
a country where the veins of the mountains are filled 
with gold, and the streams roll over golden sands — the 
glad tidings of salvation have seldom made such a stir. 
The land may be distant ; its soil poor ; its climate 
inhospitable ; its inhabitants a race of savages — it 
does not matter. Sudden farewells are spoken, fam- 
ilies are broken up, and the tenderest ties are rudely 
rent asunder ; the roads are crowded with eager em 
igrants ; and under press of sail ships race on the high 
seas, striving which first shall touch the golden strand. 
Men that would have pronounced the hardships they 
have to suffer intolerable at home, pour in eager 
crowds upon the scene. They toil, and scheme, and 
dream of gold ; and in the lust for gold, humanity, 
\rirtue, and piety are swailcwed up — as in a roaring 



THE WOELD A LIE. 



31 



whirlpool. But why go to the gold-fields of Califor- 
nia and Australia, to seek in such distant regions illus- 
trations of my remark? They may be found nearer 
home. Are there none of us — are there not many, as 
well in quiet rural scenes as in busy cities, whose sole 
ambition is wealth, who are hasting to be rich ? theirs 
the old cry, the complaint of the grave that, though 
often gorged with the banquets of battle-field and pes- 
tilence, still opens its great, black, greedy jaws to cry 
" Grive, give, give." 

The thirst for gold, like the drunkard's, is insatiable. 
The more it is indulged, the more the flame is fed, it 
burns the fiercer. These worshippers of Mammon be- 
ing determined to be rich, have no time for prayer- 
meetings ; they have hardly time for closet prayer ; 
and of money, they have none to spare, certainly noth- 
ing more than their " mite," as they call it, for the 
poor heathen abroad, or the poorer heathen at home. 
No doubt they pity the lone widow ; this poor, thin, 
ragged child ; that orphan boy. Touched by the hun- 
ger that looks out of their hollow eyes, and appeals to 
some lingering feelings of better days, they would 
give ; but ah ! they must save money — grow wealthy 
— die as rich as that man, or accumulate a fortune as 
great as this. Slaves ! Year by year they must save 
a certain sum, come what may ; and go without bread 
or education who may, they must hoard up wealth. 
See yonder lake ! The bigger the stream that runs 
into it — lying so beautiful and peaceful in the bosom 
of the shaggy mountains — the bigger the stream it 
discharges to water the plains, and, like the path of a 



32 



THE WORLD A LIE. 



Christian, wend its bright and blissful way on to its 
parent sea. But in sad contrast with that, the more 
money some men gain, the less they give ; in propor- 
tion as their wealth increases, their charities dimin- 
ish. Have we not met it, mourned over it, and seen 
how a man, setting his heart on gold, and hasting to 
be rich, came to resemble a vessel with a narrow, con- 
tracted neck, out of which water flows less freely when 
it is full than when it is nearly empty ? As there is a 
law in physics to explain that fact, there is a law in 
morals to explain this. So long as a man has no hope 
of becoming rich ; so long as in enough of bread to 
eat, of raiment to put on, of health and strength to do 
his work and fight his honest way on in the world, he 
has all man really needs. Having that, he does not 
set his heart on riches. He is a noble, unselfish, gen- 
erous, large-hearted, and, for his circumstances, an 
open-handed man. But by success in business, or 
otherwise, let a fortune come within his reach, and 
he clutches at it — grasps it. Then what a change ! 
His eye and ear, and hand close ; his sympathies grow 
dull and blunt ; his heart contracts and petrifies. 
Strange to say, plenty in such cases feeds not poverty 
but penuriousness ; and the ambition of riches opens 
a door to the meanest avarice. 

To what good all this ? How often have I thought 
of riches, when intruding on their lone domain, I 
have seen a covey of wild fowl, from the reeds of the 
lake or the heather of the hill side, rise clamorous on 
the wing, and fly away ! Has not many a man who 
hasted to be rich, and made gold his god, lived to 



THE WORLD A LIE. 



88 



become a bankrupt, and die a beggar ! — buried among 
the ruins of his ambitious schemes. "I have put a 
nail into the wheel of fortune," was the boastful ex- 
clamation of such a mar.. God i * heaven heard it \ 
put his hand upon the wheel ; and, flying round, 
it hurled the vain boaster in the dust. But grant 
that some seem to have got the secret how to put a 
nail into fortune's unsteady wheel ; what then ? Money 
is a good thing ; but it is worth, not wealth, that 
commands respect. I bestow that on him who ap- 
plies money to noble purposes ; and heartily subscribe 
to the saying, " A good name is to be chosen rather 
than great riches, and loving favour rather than silver 
or gold." 

Money, no doubt, is a power ; but a power of well- 
defined and narrow limits. It will purchase plenty, 
but not peace ; it will furnish your table with lux- 
uries, but not you with an appetite to enjoy them ; jt 
will surround your sick-bed with physicians, but no* 
restore health to your sickly frame ; it will encompass 
you with a cloud of flatterers, but never procure you 
one true friend ; it will bribe into silenos the tongues 
of accusing men, but not an accusing conscience ; it 
will pay some debts, but not the least one of all your 
debts to the law of God ; it will relieve many fears, 
but not those of guilt — the terrors that crown the 
brows of Death. He stands as grim and terrible bv 
the dying-bed of wealth as by the pallet of the poorest 
beggar whom pitiless riches has thrust from her door. 
And when death, seizing him by the throat, has flung 
the worldling on his back and, lying on the edge of 
2* 



34 



THE WORLD A LIE. 



the grape, he finds " all is vanity" that he has toiled 
and sinned for, and his hold relaxes and the world 
slips away from his grasp, and he falls back, shriek- 
ing, into a lost eternity, this voice comes sounding 
from the throne of God, "Thy calf hath cast thee 
off." 

2. The sentiment of my text is illustrated by the 
case of those who live for fame — for the favour, not 
of G-od, but of men. 

The fragrant rose and the stinging nettle, though 
plants of very different properties, may grow side by 
side in the same soil. Even so, though the love of 
money and that of fame are different passions, both 
are " of the earth, earthy" — the latter, parent as it 
has been of many brave and noble deeds, being not 
less than the former a thing of earth. And how does 
all history, sacred and profane, ancient and modern, 
shew what a capricious divinity he worships who 
courts the applause of men ; on what a precarious 
footing he stands who is a popular idol ! 

Look, for example, at our Saviour, who had his day 
of popularity, and was crowned with unsought honours. 
Yesterday the streets were thronged with thousands 
who, as they attended Jesus' progress, rent the air 
with shouts of Hosannah! hosannah to the son of 
David ! To-day the wind has shifted. Through the 
streets of Jerusalem rolls the same crowd ; the voices 
are the same ; the object of their attention and cries 
the same ; but while yesterday it was Hosannah ! to- 
day it is, Crucify him ! crucify him — away with that 
fellow to the cross 1 With the same gtage and actors, 



THE WORLD A LIE. 



35 



how different the scene ! Yesterday it was a brilliant 
triumph - to-day it is a bloody tragedy. 

From David's Son turn back now to David himself. 
Look at that gallant, modest youth — his cheek flushed 
with the excitement of the fight, and blushing deeper 
crimson under the gaze of so many eyes ! Old men, 
shedding tears of joy, load him with praises ; the 
youth of Israel regard him with a generous admira- 
tion ; while a fair crowd of blooming maidens, with 
harp in hand and flowery garlands on their heads, sing, 
as they dance before him, " Saul has slain his thou- 
sands, but David his tens of thousands." The curtain 
falls on that scene, and rises on another. An aged 
man is hurrying across the stage ; time has silvered 
his noble head ; tears filled his eyes and rolled down 
his cheeks ; an exile from Jerusalem, he is followed 
only by a small band, who go to share the misfortunes 
of their discrowned and dishonoured master. It is 
David ; the same man who, years before, had the popu- 
larity that stirred the envy of a king. Why do they 
drive him from his throne, and home, and capital? 
What evil has he done ? Evil ! He has done none — 
nothing to forfeit the favour of the giddy multitude, 
or blot out the memory of the glorious day when, 
meeting his giant foe in single combat, he slew the 
Philistine and saved the State. He is the same man ; 
but they are not the same people. Well was it for 
David on that dark, disastrous day, that he had never 
made fame his idol, or the public favour his ruling pas- 
sion ; and that he had steered his course, not by the 
shifting lights of earth, but by the pole-star of God's 



36 



THE WORLD A LIB. 



holy word! Well was it that no bearded prophet 
came out on this fugitive king, to stand in his path, 
and point to a people who had flung him off, and flung 
Mm out, saying, " Thy calf hath cast thee off ! " 

I have known a patriot who had done good service 
to the State, hissed by the populace who once cheered 
him to the echo. I have seen a preacher, once fol- 
lowed by crowds that hung upon his lips, stand up 
amid cold and empty benches ; and, when his locks 
were grey, and his hands were palsied, address himself 
to a few scattered hearers. Well was it for these men 
that they sought the people's profit — not their praise ! 
Well, when the laurels man had bound around their 
brows were dropping into dust and decay, that their 
eyes had been raised to a crown immortal in the heav- 
ens ! Well that an ungodly world could not reproach 
them, asking, Where is now thy God ? Well, above 
all, that God himself, pointing to the deserted house, 
or hissing crowd, did not say, Thy calf hath cast thee 
off! Calm, and not much moved by the vicissitudes 
of a changing world, is the soul that finds its centre 
and its rest in God. 

3. The sentiment of my text is illustrated also by 
the case of those who seek their happiness in the plea- 
sures of sin. 

Look at yonder wretched, more than wretched — 
guilty drunkard ; though, to the shame of a country 
and government that surrounds him with temptations, 
the poor wreich is sometimes as much sinned against 
as sinning. With beggary hung on his back, palsy 
shaking his hand, and in his downcast head and avert- 



THE WORLD A LIB. 



87 



ed looks a sense of shame and degradation — how un- 
like what once he was ! Where is now the jovial song 9 
where the clever jest ? where the bright and ready wit 
that, flashing over the festive scene, was followed by 
thunders of applause ? Gone ! Despised and shunned, 
like poor Robert Burns, by those who, for the sake of 
his fascinating accomplishments, once courted his so- 
ciety — driven from his drunken haunts by the greedy 
traffickers who have been building up their accursed 
fortunes out of the wreck of his body, soul, peace, 
character, home, all that is dear and precious upon 
earth — his calf hath cast him off. Or look at yon fal- 
len woman drinking the dregs of her bitter, damning 
cup ! Flattered, seduced, betrayed, and now cast away 
as a loathsome thing by the villain-hand that plucked 
the flower — " plucked the rose and left the thorn " — 
see her refused even a place to die in, and thrust forth 
lest her moans should disturb hellish orgies ! How do 
these groans of a body racked with pain, of a soul 
tortured with dreadful memories, and already suffer- 
ing the torments of hell, sound like the echo of the 
words, " Thy calf hath cast thee off ! " I never stood 
in a cold, lonely, unfurnished garret, where some such 
wretch, like a dying dog, had dragged herself quietly 
to die ; I never saw the bloated, degraded, ragged 
drunkard, driven from the door where he had wasted 
wages that should have gone to bless wife, and chil- 
dren, and make a happy home, but the voice of God 
seemed to sound out these words, " Thy calf hath cast 
thee off." Such cases teach us — may the Holy Spirit 
impress and bless the lesson — that " the tender mercies 



88 



THE WORLD A LIB. 



of the wicked are cruel " and that " the way of the 

transgressors is hard ! v 

Turn from these scenes, and let me introduce you to 
a clamber where we have been summoned to the bed- 
side of one that lies a-dying, after having run a course 
of vice — early, fiercely, madly run it. This young man 
has gone down the dance of pleasure ; and danced it 
out. The lights quenched ; the music ceased ; the 
actors gone ; he is left alone upon the stage. Now, 
another fire than that of guilty passions is burning in 
his veins. His heart is beating a quick march to the 
grave. Laughed at so long as he appeared in the 
distance, Death with grim and ghastly aspect is now 
standing by his side. He had, very probably to quiet 
an uneasy conscience, imbibed infidel opinions ; and 
his infidelity, a rotten plank, bends under the weight 
of the hour — is breaking beneath his feet! To my 
dying day I never can forget either how eagerly he 
flung out his arms to catch a hold of Christ, or the 
cries of that ghastly man as he was swept off into 
eternity. Lost or saved, I cannot tell ; but the silence 
of the skeptic's chamber seemed to be broken by a 
voice that said, " Thy calf hath cast thee off." 

I have shown how riches will cast you off, and how 
the world will cast you off, and how pleasure will one 
day fling you from her polluted arms over into the pit. 
Let me now speak for Christ, and tell you of him who 
will not — will never cast you off. "Would God that I 
might prevail on one, and another, and another, to 
come, and, casting themselves this hour into his arms, 
close with his offered mercy. A great statesman. 



THE WORLD A LIE. 



39 



abandoned in his old age by his sovereign, lay dying 
one day in England ; and it is recorded of Mm that he 
said, If I had served my God as faithfully as I have 
served my king, he had not cast me off now. How 
true ! Blessed God ! thou wilt never abandon any who 
put their trust in thee — " They that trust in the Lord 
shall be as Mount Zion, that cannot be moved." I 
have seen a master cast off an old, faithful servant. 
When his hair was grey, and his back was bent, and 
his arm was weak, and his once stalwart frame was 
worn out in service, he has been thrown on the parish, 
or on the cold charity of the world. Blessed Jesus ! 
thou never didst cast off old servant, or old soldier of 
thine ! Masters ? Not masters only, but even a mother 
may cast off! She can ' ; forget her sucking child that 
she should not have compassion on the fruit of her 
womb." But Jesus ! this true loving mother, who 
fondles her infant, presses him to her bosom, teaches 
the laughing boy to walk, kisses away his tears, hastes 
to raise him when he falls, sings him to sleep, watches 
by his cradle-couch, is ready to dash into the burning 
house, or leap into the boiling flood, to save him, is but 
thy dim, imperfect image ! How justly may we crown 
thy brows with the chaplet David wove to the memory 
of Jonathan, " Thy love to me was wonderful, passing 
the love of women ! " 

Let sinners, then, come to Jesus. Come now ! He 
will never cast you off — no, though you were the great^ 
est sinner that ever sinned on earth, he will heal your 
backslidings, and love you freely. Be it that you are 
grown grey in sin, that there is falsehood, robbery, se- 



40 



THE WORLD A LIB. 



duction, even blood, on your hand, that there is no 
crime man can commit that you have not done, it mat- 
ters not. Lay your sins on Jesus ! You shall be for- 
given ; and your welcome will be that of the returning 
prodigal who, ere he had time to cry, " Father, I have 
sinned against heaven and in thy sight," was folded in 
the old man's arms, and felt the tears from a father's 
eyes dropping on his haggard cheek. To every peni- 
tent who weeps on his bosom, Jesus says, I will never 
leave thee. Yes. Your mother may leave you, so 
may the wife of your bosom, so may wealth and health 
and earthly friends ; these all, the whole world, may 
leave you, but " I will never leave you nor forsake you." 
Leave us ! He is never so near as when all others 
leave us. " The mountains shall depart, and the hills 
be removed, but my kindness shall not depart, neither 
shall the covenant of my peace be removed, saith the 
Lord that hath mercy on thee." Let dying chambeis 
witness how true to such promises is the believer's 
God. Look here — a Christian is dying ; striking the 
last blows of a long, hard-fought battle, the sword is 
about to drop from his hand — the crown is descending 
on his head Stand aside and give him air ! Lay 
your hand on his heart ; it is fluttering like a dying 
bird ! Hush I he speaks ; bend over him and lay your 
ear close to his lips. The voice is weak and tremu- 
lous, but in that dread hour how strong the faith that 
whispers, with life's fading breath, " My heart and my 
flesh faint and fail, but God is the strength of my 
heart, and my portion for evermore ! " 



" One thing thou laciest." — Mark x. 21. 

It is not raw recruits, beardless boys, that ar< 
thrown into the fiery breach, or placed in the front ol 
battle. On the contrary, where the bullets fly the 
thickest, and the carnage rages fiercest, the ground is 
held by veterans — men that, inured to war, and familiar 
with the sight of blood, the flash of steel, and the roar 
of cannon, wear stern determination on their faces, 
and scars and medals on their breasts. The post of 
danger is assigned to veterans. Heavy burdens are 
for the back, not of boys, but men. This is common 
sense ; and to deal otherwise were to deal unwisely 
and unfairly. It were little else than murder to bid a 
boy who had just left his mother's side, nor set foot be- 
fore on a deck, climb the shrouds to reef the top-sails 
in a storm, when masts bent to the breaking, and the 
ship was reeling down into the trough of the sea. 
What man who loved his son, and possessed sense and 
consideration, would put inexperienced youth to so 
severe a trial ? 

Why, then, since Jesus really loved the young ruler, 
did he try him in a way that would have put the faith of 
the oldest Christian to the strain ? Samson's hair is left 

(41) 



ONE THING NEEDFUL. 



time to grow ; nor is it till his shoulders are covered 
with flowing locks that he has to confront the shaggy 
lion. He is grown to manhood before he is called to 
the work, not of one, but of a thousand men. But 
here Christ calls one young in years, and younger still 
in his regard to himself, to undertake a gigantic task ; 
and when the boy who, so to speak, has never seen the 
flash of steel before, is ordered to the front — into the 
very thick of the fight, and shrinks back, I confess that 
at first sight I wonder less at that, than that Jesus 
should have exposed a stripling to so sore a trial. Let 
the best and oldest Christian imagine himself in this 
young man's circumstances ! Suppose his case to be 
yours ! Think how you would feel were you suddenly 
called on to give away all the earnings of a life-time 
or to part with an ancestral estate — the old house, tht 
old trees, the lands that had been in your family foi 
many generations — or to leave a pleasant home, the 
scenes of your boyhood, the society of dear friends, 
reputation, wealth, rank, to descend at a step into the 
condition of a beggar ; and follow the fortunes of a 
man himself so poor, that he had not a place where to 
lay his head. Would not that make the boldest of us 
hesitate ; the strongest stagger ? It was a dreadful 
trial. How many of us could stand it, God only 
knows ! But if any look more with scorn than sym- 
pathy on this faltering youth, I do not ; and such as 
feel quite confident that they would have acted a no- 
bler part would do well to remember the warning. 
" Let not him that j utteth on his armor boast as he 
that putteth it off." 



ONE THING NEEDFUL. 



43 



" Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy 
laden, and I will give you rest — Take my yoke upon 
you, for it is easy ; and my burden, for it is light," said 
our blessed Lord. Most gracious words ! And what 
object could this loving Saviour have in laying what 
appeared so heavy a burden on the back of this youth ? 
It was his real good. It was not to break the back of 
the man, but of his pride. It was not to repel, but to 
attract him ; not to quench the smoking flax, but to 
blow it into a flame. By the use of a test whereby he 
might be convinced that he was not what he seemed to 
others, nor even to himself, our Lord sought to bring 
him to a true knowledge of himself ; and that, in fact, 
so far as genuine faith and piety were concerned, these 
words were true of him, " One thing thou lackest." 

I. How important one thing may be. 

The want of one tiling may make void the presence 
of all things else. Lacking its mainspring — which is 
but one thing — a watch with jewels, wheels, pinions, 
and beautiful mechanism, the finest watch indeed that 
was ever made, is of no more use than a stone. A sun- 
dial without its gnomen, as it is called, time's iron fin- 
ger that throws its shadow on the circling hours — but 
one thing also — is as useless in broad day as in the 
blackest night. A ship may be built of the strongest 
oak, with masts of the stoutest pine, and manned by 
the best officers and crew, but I sail not in her if she 
lacks one thing — that trembling needle whicli a child 
running about the deck might fancy a toy ; on that 
plaything, as it looks, the safety of all on board de« 



44 



ONE THING NEEDFUL. 



pends — lacking that, but one thing, the ship shall be 
their coffin, and the deep sea their grave. It is thus 
with true piety, with living faith. That one thing 
wanting, the greatest works, the costliest sacrifices, and 
the purest life, are of no value in the sight of God — 
are null and void. 

Still further, to impress you with the valuelessness 
of every thing without true piety, and show how its 
presence imparts such worth to a believer's life and 
labours, as to make his mites weigh more than other 
men's millions, and his cup of cold water more precious 
than their cups of gold — let me borrow an illustration 
from arithmetic. Write down a line of cyphers ! You 
may add thousands, multiplying them till the sheets 
they fill cover the face of earth and heaven, they ex- 
press nothing ; and are worth nothing. Now take the 
lowest number of the ten, the smallest digit ; and place 
that at their head — magic never wrought such a 
change ! What before amounted to nothing rises in- 
stantly by the addition of one figure, one stroke of the 
pen, into thousands, or millions, as the case may be ; 
and whether they represent pounds or pearls, how 
great is the sum of them ! Such power resides in true 
faith — in genuine piety. 

It may be the lowest piety — but one degree above 
zero ; it may be the love of smoking flax ; the hope of 
a bruised reed ; the faith of a mustard seed ; the hes- 
itating, faltering confidence of him who cried, " Lord, 
I believe, help thou mine unbelief." Still, so soon as 
it is inwrought by the Spirit of God, it changes the 
whole aspect of a man's life and the whole prospect of 



ONE THING NEEDFUL. 



45 



lis eternity. It is that one important thing, wanting 
which, however amiable, moral, and even apparently 
religious we may be, our Lord addresses us, as he did 
the young ruler, saying, " One thing thou lackest." 
Sad to say, the one thing lacking is the one thing 
needful. 

This interesting and alarming case suggests two or 
three cautions, which we would do well to ponder and 
attend to. Our heart being by nature deceitful above 
all things, and desperately wicked, we are prone to 
say, Peace, peace, when there is no peace to be found ; 
and I pray you, therefore, to observe — 

II. That we may be amiable without being religious. 

It is sad to find grace associated in some Christian 
people with an unkindly, uncharitable, sour, severe, 
stern, or sullen temper. It should not be so. It pre- 
sents a most unhappy and incongruous conjunction — 
one that, to borrow the wise man's figure, is " like a 
jewel in a swine's snout." If the world's enmity to 
God and his image is such that a Christian is not a 
man loved, be it so ; but let him be lovely and loving 
— let him be like Christ ! What a lovely example 
his ! Into whose eye did Jesus ever bring a tear ; in 
whose pillow one thorn ? The very look he bore bred 
hope in the bosom of despair, and invited the guiltiest 
to his feet. The voice that ruled the wild elements of 
nature was low and sweet to win the confiderce of 
childhood ; arid he who was more than a man among 
men became a child to children. Ready to serve all, 
e had tears xor them that wept, and ears for them 



46 



ONE THING NEEDFUL. 



that begged ; a helping hand for such as needed, and 
forgiveness for such as sinned ; peace for a weeping 
Magdalene ; prayers for murderers ; paradise for a 
dying thief : and for all that suffered such ready sym- 
pathy, that on his visit to Bethany, after Lazarus' 
death, Martha, never doubting it, passionately ex- 
claimed, " If thou hadst been here my brother had not 
died." Well did a woman, as she hung on his lips, 
drink in his words ; and looking up into a face where 
human mildness was blended with divine majesty, raise 
her hands to exclaim, " Blessed is the womb that bare 
thee, and the paps which thou hast sucked." 

His life is a picture not to admire only, but to copy : 
a pattern to imitate by constant attention to such coun- 
sels as these : Be courteous ; be merciful ; forgiving 
and forbearing with one another ; be kindly affection- 
ate toward one another in brotherly love ; condescend 
to those that are of low estate ; let not the sun go 
down upon your wrath ; let no wrath, or malice, or 
evil speaking, proceed out of your mouth ; love one 
another, as I have loved you ; love is of God, and 
every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth 
God. Alas ! that Christians should, as thay often do, 
mar the appearance and impair the influence of their 
piety by neglecting these beautiful rules ! They shine ; 
but like a lamp where the flame gleams dimly through 
foul and smoky glass. John Baptist was not only a 
burning but a shining light ; and we should never 
forget the emphatic word of this saying — " Let your 
light so shine r> — shine so bright, with such a smokeless 
flame, through a life of such transparent purity — " that 



ONE THING NEEDFUL. 



41 



others seeing your good works may glorify your Father 
which is in heaven." 

Though to be lamented, it is not to be denied, that 
grace has a hard struggle in some with a naturally 
narsh, imperious, uncharitable temper. If I sought 
among good men, not a resemblance, but in one aspect 
a contrast, to our Lord himself, I find in Jonah, as he 
stands here in Scripture, rather a beacon to warn men 
off, than a light to guide them on. Though a great 
sinner, and one who had experienced much mercy and 
a most remarkable deliverance from death at the hand 
of God, see how that stern and gloomy man can calmly 
contemplate the destruction of Nineveh, with its six 
score thousand children who knew not their right 
hand from their left ! The city is spared ; and now, 
lest his reputation should sustain some injury, and he, 
forsooth, be accounted a false prophet, he frets and 
fumes ! What is man ? "What a pitiable exhibition 
this, of pride and selfishness ! It has led some to 
doubt whether, with such an ungenial and ungracious 
temper, he did not belong to the Balaam order of 
prophets — whether he was really a true man of God. 
We feel no such doubt. Still his case proves how 
much the grace of God has sometimes to contend with ; 
how much it has to overcome ; and how true the say- 
ing, Grace will live where neither you nor I could. 
Grace living in Jonah's heart appears a greater won- 
der tha'i Jonah living in the whale's belly ; and his 
final deliverance from a temper so proud and rugged 
was, at least, as great a miracle as when the monster, 
cleaving its way tlirough the deep, struck the shore 



48 



ONE THING NEEDFUL. 



and vomited him out safe on the dry land. No trne 

Christian shall die, and therefore no true Christian 
should be content to live with such dispositions, and in 
such a state ; for though fruit when first formed be 
green and sour, it always sweetens as it ripens, and 
mellows to its fall. All whom God justifies, he will 
certainly, sooner or later sanctify. 

While saving grace, as is shewn by the case of Jonah, 
may be found where there is a sad want of natural 
graces, as they are called, on the other hand, these 
have adorned many who were entire strangers to the 
grace of God. Beware of confounding them : mistak- 
ing the one for the other ; or imagining that natural 
graces ever can compensate for the grace that is to 
salvation. We may be possessed of much that is beau- 
tiful, without anything holy — presenting features of 
character more or less analogous to those of nature. 
The moor with bushes of golden gorse, the hills robed 
in purple, the woodlands where bright sunbeams play 
on a carpet of many-colored sorrel, hyacinths, and 
anemones, the banks by the waterside fragrant with 
thyme, or studded with modest primroses — these un- 
cultivated wilds have beautiful flowers ; and in affec- 
tionate parents, sweet children, gentle sisters, loving 
brothers, kind acquaintances, and when a man's back 
is at the wall, friends true as steel, our unsanctified 
nature presents beautiful specimens of humanity. What 
an example of this, the man before us ! Yet turning 
his back on Christ, and going away sorrowful because 
he had great possessions, how does he warn us that 
the sweetest, kindest, gentlest, may want the one thing 



ONE THING NEEDFUL. 



49 



needful ! However lovely and loved you may be, and 
indeed deserve to be, except you are born again you 
cannot see the kingdom of God. 

TTT. There may be much moral correctness without 
true religion. 

To us there seems a wide difference between the 
judge, with the robes of office on his back, mind in his 
eye, and dignity in his mien, and that poor, pale, hag- 
gard wretch at the bar, who throws stealthy glances 
around, and hangs his head with shame. Yet the dif- 
ference that looks so great to man may be very small 
in the eyes of God ; and would look small in ours if 
we knew the different upbringings and history of both. 
The judge never knew what it was to want a meal ; 
the felon often went cold and hungry to bed. The 
one, sprung of wise, kind, reputable, and perhaps pious 
parents, was early trained to good, and launched, with 
all the advantages of school and college, on an honour- 
able and high career ; while the other, bred up a stran- 
ger to the amenities of cultivated and Christian so- 
ciety, had no such advantages. Born to misery, his 
struggles with misfortune and evil began at the cradle. 
None ever took him by the hand to lead him to church 
or school. A child of poverty, and the offspring of 
abandoned parents, he was taught no lesson but how to 
?wear, and lie, and drink, and cheat, and steal. The 
fact is, it is just as difficult for some to be honest as it 
is easy for others. What merit has that judge in his 
honesty? None. He had no temptation to be else 
than honest. And so, I suspect, much of the morality 
3 



50 



ONE THING NEEDFUL. 



— of that unblemished character and decent life in 
which many trust, saying to some poor guilty thing, 
" Stand aside, I am holier than thou," and pluming 
themselves on this, that they have not sinned as others 
have done — is due, less to their superior virtue, than 
to their more favourable circumstances. Have they 
not sinned as others have done ? I reply, They have 
not been tempted as others have been. And so the 
difference between many honest men and decent women 
on the one hand, and those on the other hand on whom 
a brand of infamy has been burned and the key of a 
prison turned, may be just the difference between the 
green branch on the tree and the white ashes on the 
hearth. This is bathed in the dews of night and fan- 
ued by the breath of heaven, while that, once as green, 
has been thrust into the burning fire — the one has 
been tried in a way that the other has not. No doubt 
God's grace can preserve man in temptation as his 
presence did the bush that was wrapped in flames and 
burned unconsumed. Not otherwise, however, can any 
be preserved. Therefore it becomes us to be clothed 
with humility ; ever praying, Lead us not into tempta- 
tion. " Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed 
lest he fall." 

Taking into account the fortunate and favourable 
circumstances in which some are reared, we can thus 
explain this youth's reply to our Lord's repetition of 
the commandments, " Master, all these have I observed 
from my youth." A child of fortune, the heir of afflu- 
ence, reared perhaps with pious care, with a noble pro- 
perty to supply his wants, an honourable station to sus- 



ONE THING NEEDFUL. 



51 



tain, and kind parents to win his affections, it is easy 
to account for his observance of the law — such as it 
was. It did not require an element of divine love in 
his heart, or of true piety in his character. His purse 
filled with money, what temptation had he to steal ? 
Blessed with an amiable temper, he had none of those 
quick and fiery passions which explode into acts of 
violence, and hurry others into unpremeditated crime, 
having the honour of a holy office to sustain, no won- 
der that he was not addicted to the grosser sins! 
Possessing kind affections, and blessed with indulgent 
parents, no wonder that he honours them if living, and 
if dead, cherishes their memory and adorns their tomb. 

This man did not know the spiritual nature of God's 
law, and how is a discerner of the thoughts and in- 
tents of the heart, and how there may be adultery in a 
look, theft in a desire, and murder in an angry passion. 
Otherwise he had not replied, " Master, all these things 
have I observed from my youth but cried, Alas ! 
alas ! my Master, all these things have I broken from 
my youth — save me, I perish ! And since, with affec- 
tions so amiable, and a life as fair as ever won the es- 
teem of mankind, he yet lacked the one thing needful ; 
since he had nothing of godliness but a form — of relig- 
ion but an empty shell ; since the eye of Jesus, under 
his fair exterior, detected a selfish and unregenerate 
heart, what need have we to try ourselves? Your 
temper may be sweeter than Jonah's, still you may lack 
the one thing needful ; your life may be purer than Da- 
vid's, still you may lack the one thing needful ; you 
may be more honest than one to whom a dying Saviour 



52 



ONE THING NEEDFUL. 



opened the gates of Paradise, and a pattern of filial 
obedience, you may be able to say with the elder brother 
of the prodigal, " Lo, these many years do I serve thee, 
neither transgressed I at any time thy commandment," 
still you may lack the one thing needful. This goodly 
exterior may be but the garish paint and odorous wrap- 
pings of a mummy case ; within, is only dust and death. 
Let a man, then, examine himself. You may have still 
to be saved. Look within. Is the heart right with 
God ? Unless it is right, all is wrong. Nor only try 
yourselves, but ask the Searcher of hearts to try you, 
crying, " Lord, search me, and try me, and see if there 
be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way ever- 
lasting." 

IY. We may feel some interest and even anxiety about 
good things without true religion. 

In this case, the path, as we advance, grows gloomier ; 
the subject more solemn ; the gate seems to straiten, and 
the road becomes narrower that leads to eternal life. 
How much is there here to alarm the careless, and to 
warn us all ! Here is a man so amiable that he won 
our Lord's affections — " Jesus loved him," yet without 
saving grace ; here is a man of the highest morale, yet 
without saving grace ; here is a man repairing to the 
very fountain-head of life, seeking it in Christ, yet a 
stranger to the grace of God — lost, forever lost, so far 
as we know or read in Scripture. The curtain drops 
on him, with his face turned to the world, and his back 
to heaven. 

I look on this as one of the most alarming cases in 



ONE THING NEEDFUL. 



53 



the sacred record. How loudly it calls professing 
Christians to try the foundations on which their hopes 
are resting ! Are there not many who in their life, 
their manners, their disposition and deportment, come 
far short of one who himself came short of eternal 
life ? and if he missed the prize, what feasible, possible 
ground have they to hope for it ? He had something, 
but they have nothing in them for Jesus to love ; nor 
can they in any sense whatever say, " Master, all these 
things have I observed from my youth." If a man out- 
wardly so good did not get to heaven, then how are 
they to get there ? " If these things were done in the 
green tree, what shall be done in the dry ?" If the 
righteous, not like this man the nominally, but the 
really righteous, those who have been washed in the 
blood of the Son, and sanctified by the Spirit of God, 
are scarcely saved, where shall the wicked and the un- 
godly appear ? " Be not deceived, neither fornicators, 
nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor thieves, nor covetous, 
nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall in- 
herit the kingdom of God." 

This ruler gave more apparent evidence of saving 
grace perhaps than you do — than many certainly do 
who repair to the Lord's table and bear an excellent 
character in the church. Look at his earnestness ! He 
did not postpone to some more convenient period the 
concerns of his soul ; on the contrary, these engrossed 
his attention, and eagerly bent on this great object, like 
a man thoroughly in earnest, engaged in an affair that 
brooked no delay, " he came running to Christ." Look 
at his humility ! A noble by birth, a ruler by office, a 



54 



ONE THING NEEDFUL. 



man of high position and immense wealth, see him 
kneeling at the feet of one who drew his first breath 
in a stable, and wandered the world so poor that he 
had not a place, other than the cold ground, where to 
lay his head. Look at this respect and reverence! 
Others called Jesus a glutton and wine-bibber, the as- 
sociate of publicans and friend of sinners ; not so this 
man. He may call others Rabbi, but the carpenter's 
son and maligned of Pharisees, he esteems and honors 
above all — Jesus is not Master merely, but good Mas- 
ter ; " Good Master," he says, " what shall I do to in- 
herit eternal life ?" Then look at the object he sought 
to grasp ! Though possessed of everything this world 
could afford, or its worshippers desire — a happy tem- 
per, the affection of friends, a noble reputation, posses- 
sions greater than his wants, he felt a void within that 
the world could not fill. Aspiring after honors which 
God only can give, and seeking a house eternal in the 
heavens, he looks beyond this world ; and more than 
that, as if he knew the avenger was at his heels, and 
heard his step and breathing close behind, see with 
what speed he runs to the City of refuge ! Yonder is 
Christ. He makes right for the crowd ; dashes into 
it ; elbows his way through ; and throwing himself at 
Jesus' feet, cries, Good Master, what shall I do to in- 
herit eternal life? No wonder that the disciples, 
when they saw such a man turn his back on Christ, 
and heard our Lord pronounce it easier for a camel to 
pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man 
to enter the kingdom of heaven, were astonished out 
of measure ; and said, Who then can be saved ? If 



ONE THING NEEDFUL. 



55 



this good ship does not make the harbor, what hope 
for others ? 

" Who then can be saved ?" We are prepared to 
answer the question. All, the greatest sinners, may be 
saved that seek what this young ruler lacked. If a man, 
clinging to this wreck, will stay in it, he shall perish 
— sink with the sinking ship. But accept the offer 
Christ makes of peace by the blood of his cross, and 
you are saved ; saved in spite of your riches, as well 
as of your sins. This man went away sorrowful. But 
you may go away joyful ; not gloomy but glad ; re- 
joicing in the Lord, and joying in the God of your 
salvation. Mercy to pardon all your sins, and blood 
to cleanse your guilty souls, faith to believe in Christ 
and grace to follow him, are at your acceptance. 
God makes a free offer of them now. Close with it ! 
Cast yourselves at the Saviour's feet, and you shall 
rise to say, Jesus ! lead on ! I follow. Farewell 
father and mother ; farewell brother and sister ; fare- 
well lover and friend ; farewell riches and reputa- 
tion ; farewell ease and indulgence. I accept this 
cross. Lead on, Lord ! where thou goest I will go ; 
where thou lodgest, I will lodge ; thy people shall be 
my people, and thy God shall be my God. 



M%» Start**. 



u I looked on all the works that my hands had wrought, and )n the Labour 
that I had laboured to do." — Eccles. ii. 11. 

Our Lord pronounced the children of this world 
" wise in their generation and who can doubt that 
thousands who are lost would, with God's blessing, be 
saved, did they bring the same prudence, and dili- 
gence, aud energy to their eternal, as they do to their 
temporal interests ? But in how many people is con- 
summate wisdom joined to the greatest folly ! They 
are wise enough to gain the world, but fools enough 
to lose their souls. 

Convince a man that the only way to save his life 
is to part with his limb, and he does not hesitate an 
instant between living with one limb and being buried 
with two. Borne in the operating theatre, pale, yet 
resolute, he bares the diseased member to the knife. 
And how well does that bleeding, fainting, groaning 
sufferer teach us to part with our sins rather than 
with our Saviour. If life is better than a limb, how 
much better is heaven than a sin I 

Two years ago a man was called to decide between 
preserving his life, and parting with the gains of his 
lifetime. A. gold-digger, he stood on the deck of a 

(56) 



THE REVIEW. 57 

ship that, coming from Australian shores, had — as 
some all but reach heaven — all but reached her har- 
bour in safety. The exiles had been coasting along 
their native shores : and to-morrow, husbands would 
embrace their wives, children their parents, and not a 
few realize the bright dream of returning to pass the 
evening of their days in happiness amid the loved 
scenes of their youth. But as the proverb runs, there 
is much between the cup and the lip. Night came 
lowering down ; and with the night a storm that 
wrecked ship, and hopes, and fortunes, all together. 
The dawning light but revealed a scene of horror — 
death staring them in the face. The sea, lashed into 
fury, ran mountains high ; no boat could live in her. 
One chance still remained. Pale women, weeping 
children, feeble and timid men, must die ; but a stout, 
brave swimmer, with trust in God, and disencumbered 
of all impediments, might reach the shore, where hun- 
dreds stood ready to dash into the boiling surf, and, 
seizing, save him. One man was observed to go be- 
low. He bound around his waist a heavy belt, filled 
with gold, the hard gains of his life ; and returned 
to the deck. One after another, he saw his fellow- 
passengers leap overboard. After a brief but terrible 
struggle, head after head went down — sunk by the 
gold they had fought hard to gain, and were loth to 
lose. Slowly he was seen to unbuckle his belt. His 
hopes had been bound up in it. It was to buy him 
land, and ease, and respect — tne reward of long years 
of hard and weary exile. What hardships he had 
endured for it ! The sweat of his brow, the hopes of 
3* 



58 



THE REVIEW. 



day and the dreams of night, were there. If he paits 
with it, he is a beggar ; and then if he keeps it, he 
dies. He poised it in his hand ; balanced it for a 
awhile ; took a long, sad look at it ; and then with 
one strong, desperate effort, flung it far out into the 
roaring sea. Wise man! It sinks with a sullen 
plunge ; and now he follows it — not to sink, but, dis- 
encumbered of its weight, to swim ; to beat the bil- 
lows manfully ; and, riding on the foaming surge, to 
reach the shore. Well done, brave gold-digger ! Ay, 
well done, and well chosen ; but if " a man," as the 
Devil said, who for once spoke God's truth, " will give 
all that he hath for his life," how much more should 
he give all he hath for his soul ? Better to part with 
gold than with God ; to bear the heaviest cross than 
miss a heavenly crown. 

Such lessons the children of this world teach the 
children of " the kingdom ; " and among others, and 
not the least important lesson, is the duty of self-ex- 
amination. Was there ever a successful merchant 
who did not balance his books year by year ? I have 
noticed, in reading the details of a court of bankruptcy, 
that fortunes are as surely wrecked by indolence or 
carelessness, as by wild speculations, or boundless ex- 
travagance. Here is a trader, bankrupt. Sober, hon- 
est, industrious, anxious to pay every one their own, 
not living in splendour at other men's expense, he 
should have thriven. Yet this honest man has to take 
a place beside rogues — he, and others, throwing all the 
blame on fortune ; imputing his misfortunes to the 
blind goddess, her capricious temper and unsteady 



THE REVIEW. 



59 



vrheel. But the examination comes, like that day of a 
greater judgment which shall reveal the true, and un- 
suspected causes that have wrought the ruin of many 
souls. The debtor's books are produced ; and now it 
appears that last year, and the year before, and for 
many years, there has been no balance struck. Fancy- 
ing that all was right, too careless to think of it, too 
busy to spare time for taking stock, or too indolent to 
go through its irksome labour, from year to year he 
has put off striking a balance, till now he strikes on 
the rock ahead. The crash comes. He opens his eyes 
on ruin ; and finds, too late, that for years he has been 
driving a losing trade. He is a bankrupt for want of 
a balance. And the general practice of men of busi- 
ness, their custom of year by year taking stock, exam- 
ining their books and striking a balance to know how 
they stand, is a lesson of the highest value. Our ever- 
lasting salvation may turn on it. People go on dream- 
ing that all is right when all is wrong ; nor wake to 
the dreadful truth till they open their eyes in torment. 
What pains ought we to take to avoid the remotest 
chance of such a calamity ! If men take such care of 
their earthly fortunes, how much greater our need to 
see how we stand with God ; and do with our spiritual 
what all wise merchants do with their earthly inter- 
ests — review the transactions of every year ! Let us 
judge ourselves that we be not judged ; and, holding 
a court of conscience, in the words of the text, " Look 
on all the things that my hands have wrought, and on 
the labours that I have laboured to do." 



60 



THE REVIEW. 



I. In this review we should inquire what we have done 
for God. 

What has God done for us ? In the dew drops that 
top every spike of grass, sow the sward with orient 
pearl, and hang like pendent diamonds, sparkling in 
the sun from all the leaves of the forest, you see the 
multitude of his mercies. He crowns the year with 
his bounty. We have seen other streams dried up by 
the heat of summer, and frozen by the cold of winter 
— that of his mercies never. It has flowed on ; day 
by day, night by night, ever flowing ; and largely fed 
of heavenly showers, sometimes overflowing all its 
banks. To this, and that other one has the past 
brought afflictions ? Still, may I not ask, how few our 
miseries to the number of our mercies ; how far have 
our blessings exceeded our afflictions ; our nights of 
sleep, those of wakefulness ; our hours of health, those 
of sickness ; our many gains, the few losses we have 
suffered ? For every blow, how many blessings ! and 
even when he smote with one hand, did not a gracious 
God hold up with the other ? Who has not to sing of 
mercy as well as judgment ; ay, much more of mercies 
than of judgments ? Let us not write the memory of 
these on water, and of those on the rock. Then, can 
we deny, should we not rather be ready to acknow- 
ledge, that however sorely tried, we have been afflicted 
far less than our iniquities deserved ? Let that silence 
each murmuring thought, and teach us to be dumb- 
opening not the mouth. Dumb ! No. Let the dumb 
sing ! " Count it all joy," says the apostle, " when ye 
fall into divers temptations." Faith sees crowns grow 



THE EEVIEW. 



ing on the top of crosses, and plucks roses from the 
thorny bush. She holds in her hand that which not 
only turns water into wine — common into new cove- 
nant mercies, but Jericho's saltness and Marah's bitter- 
ness into sweetest streams. What a healing branch, 
plucked from the tree of life, this truth, " All things 
shall work together for good to them that love God, 
to them who are the called according to his purpose 
or this, " Our light affliction, which is but for a mo- 
ment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal 
weight of glory ? " 

That is one side of the account-current ; now look 
at the other ! In the years that are past, what have 
we done for God ? We have had many, daily, innu- 
merable, opportunities of serving him, speaking for him, 
working for him, not sparing ourselves for him who 
spared not his own Son for us. Yet, how little have 
we attempted ; and how much less have we done in 
the spirit of our Saviour's words, Wist ye not that I 
must be about my Father's business ? In the golden 
sheaves of harvests the soil, grateful for favours, re- 
turns to the husbandman all that it gets ; and by the 
mouths of its ten thousand rivers the earth gives back 
her treasures to the sea — and hence the sea is always 
full. But how poor the return we have made to God ! 
There is no moor in our country so barren as our 
hearts. They drink up God's blessings as the sands 
of the Sahara heaven's rain. Nor is it but here and 
there that our life shews any green spets with verdure 
to refresh the eye, and call for the grateful acknow- 
ledgment of the apostle, " By grace I am what I am,*"" 



62 



THE REVIEW; 



— by the grace of God I have done what I have done 1 
Alas, how few are the days, how few the deeds of the 
past, that will be remembered with any comfort on a 
death-bed ! It is impossible even now to review our 
lives without feeling that there is no hope for us out 
of Christ ; and that the best and the busiest have been 
unprofitable servants. And if such be the case with 
those who are not dead to the claims of God, but say, 
I love the Lord — Bless the Lord, my soul — I have 
wished, and I have tried to serve him — what must be 
the case with others ? What looms up in the future 
of those who have lived without God in the world ? 
If the righteous scarcely are saved, where shall the 
wicked and ungodly appear ? 

II. In this review we should inquire what we have 
done for ourselves. 

From the summit of his hanging gardens, Nebu- 
chadnezzar swept his eye over the mighty city that lay 
with its hundred gates of brass, the vast circuit of its 
walls, its noble river, and lordly palaces, and busy 
streets, spread out at his feet. His pride kindles at 
the sight. Is not this, he exclaims, great Babylon that 
I have built ! But where is Babylon now ? In anti- 
christian Rome there is a mystic Babylon, against 
which God seems to be mustering his armies, so that 
ere long the world, shaken by her fall, may hear the 
long expected cry, " Babylon the great is fallen, is fal- 
len." But the other has perished ages ago in the 
wreck of time, and left hardly a wreck behind. 
M Babylon shall become heaps ; " and heaps she is, 



THE EEVIEW. 



68 



By the silent river that sweeps through a lonely des- 
ert, the long clay mounds mark her grave ; and re- 
main to give echo to the words, Yanity, vanity, all is 
vanity ! 

And if " the harvest is past, and the summer ended, 
and we are not saved," what other verdict than " Yan- 
ity " can conscience and truth pronounce on the years 
that are gone ? We have stopped half-way in Solomon's 
sentence for a text ; but we must read it out, on to the 
close, for the full-length portrait of one who has lived 
in pleasure, neglecting the great salvation : " I looked 
on all the works that my hands had wrought, and on 
the labour that I had laboured to do ; and, behold, all 
was vanity and vexation of spirit, and there was no 
profit under the sun." 

No profit ? Do you reply, I have made large profits 
— my business has paid me, and yielded large returns 
— I have added acres to my lands — I have added hun- 
dreds to my wealth, or many fresh, green leaves to my 
laurel-crown ? But, let me say that that, perhaps, is 
not all you have added. What if by every day you 
have lived without God and for the world, you have add- 
ed difficulties to your salvation ; shackles to your limbs ) 
bars to your prison ; guilt to your soul ; sins to your 
debt ; thorns to your dying pillow ? As Samuel John- 
son said to G-arrick, when the great actor, receiving 
the great moralist at his country- villa, showed him all 
its elegance and beauty, — " Ah, David ! " said Johnson 
solemnly, as he laid a kind hand on the other's shoul- 
der,- — " these are the things that make a death-bed ter- 
rible." Profit ! what profit had Jonah in his gourd, 



64 



THE REVIEW. 



when its dry leaves rustled over his burning head, and 
fell in showers on the floor of his once green bower. 

There is a story of a man who, unable to recall one 
good thing said or done from morning to noon, and 
from noon to night, exclaimed, I have lost a day ! But 
if the years now gone, with all their golden hours gone 
never to return, have been spent only on the world and 
the things of the world, — if " the harvest is past, and 
the summer is ended, and we are not saved," it is not a 
day, nor a year, but years that we have lost. 

Not lost, however, these years by those who, born 
again, and made new creatures in Jesus Christ, have 
entered on a state of grace ! A memorable night that 
when the ground shook beneath the tramp of millions, 
and Moses at her head, triumphant and jubilant Israel 
took her way out of the land of bondage ! A memora- 
ble day that when, rising to the voice of Christ, Laza- 
rus left the dusty tomb, its gloomy silence, and mould- 
ering skeletons, for his sisters' arms and the lightsome 
home at Bethany ! But more memorable still the year 
on which a soul passes from death to life, the date and 
day of a man's second birth. 

Happy day, happy day, 

"When Jesus washed my sins away. 

Other birth-days may be dashed in some measure 
with sorrow, and celebrated with chequered feelings. 
Where are some who used to convene on these occa- 
sions, and wish us years of happiness? We miss 
rouud the board familiar faces ; this and that chair is 



THE REVIEW. 



65 



vacant ; old friends are thinning off ; and death, ap- 
proaching ourselves, projects a cold shadow on the 
festive scene. And, ah, how many celebrate birth- 
days they shall wish had never been ! The lights ex- 
tinguished — the music silent — the dancers gone — the 
fair forms of beauty mouldering in the grave, — in 
another world they shall curse the day they were wont 
to celebrate with such joyous scenes, and games, and 
merry laughter. " Cursed be the day when I was 
born — oh, that my mother might have been my grave 
— wherefore came I forth from the womb," Jeremiah 
says, " that my days should be consumed with shame ? 99 
— but they shall say, that I should suffer this torment, 
be gnawed by a worm that never dieth, and burn in 
flames that are never quenched. From such an awful 
doom, good Lord deliver us ! 

Let no man be cast down ; give way to despair ! 
Years are lost ; but the soul is not yet lost. There is 
still time to be saved. Haste, then, and away. Up to 
work, the night is falling ; to pray, the door is shut- 
ting ; to escape, the avenger is close behind you. 
Make for the City of Refuge 1 Believe in Christ ! for 
whosoever believeth in him shall not perish, but hath 
everlasting life. 

m. In this review we should inquire what we have 
done for others. 

Our Saviour's whole life, which, if written fully out, 
John says, would fill so many volumes that the world 
would not be able to contain them, is told in this one, 
brief sentence, " He went about doing good." In thin 



66 



*HE REVIEW. 



work he lived ; for this end he died. This drew him 
down from the skies ; " doing good " was " the joy 
set before him," for which he wore the thorny crown, 
and bore his heavy cross. And mark this, that none 
are his, but those that are baptized with this baptism ; 
—not you, " unless the same mind is in you that was in 
Jesus Christ.' 7 

Suppose, then, that our blessed Lord, sitting down 
on Olivet to review the years of his busy life, had 
looked on all the works which his hands had wrought, 
— what a crowd, a long procession of miracles and 
mercies had passed before him 1 How many sinners 
warned ! how many mourners comforted ! how many 
friends and neighbours counselled! how many griefs 
healed ! how many sufferers relieved ! what busy days, 
what blessed hours ! his presence carrying sunbeams 
into darkened homes ! mercies springing up like flow- 
ers all along his path from the cradle to the grave ! 
With what truth and beauty might he have applied to 
himself the words of the patriarch : " When the ear 
heard me, then it blessed me ; and when the eye saw 
me, it gave witness of me ; because I delivered the 
poor that cried, the fatherless, and him that had none 
to help him. The blessing of him that was ready to 
perish came upon me : and I caused the widow's heart 
to sing with joy." True of Job, how much more true 
are these words of the life of Jesus ! He came in the 
form of a servant ; and lived, not to himself, it was 
his meat and drink to do his Father's will. In that, he 
hath set us an example that we should follow his steps. 
Ajid such an example ! I believe there were more good 



THE REVIEW. 



ST 



works crowded into one, single day of Christ's life, 
than you will find spread over the life-long history of 
any Christian. 

Trying our piety by this test, what testimony does 
our past life bear to his character ? Ages ago, two 
strangers belonging to other spheres, alighted on our 
world ; and both have left their footprints behind 
them. The poles are not so wide asunder as were 
their purposes. Rising on the smoke of the pit, Satan 
came from hell to ruin it : descending with a train of 
angels from the skies, Jesus came from heaven to save 
it. Each had his mission ; and each performed it. 
We also have ours ; and looking to the manner in 
which we have passed our lives, to which of the two 
do we bear the greatest resemblance ? What have we 
been doing, what have we done in years gone by 1 
Creeping like a serpent in some happy Eden, have we 
tempted others to their fall? or, Christlike, have we 
sought to raise the fallen ? The tree is known by its 
fruits. Judge ye. The Lord have mercy on you if 
tempting others to sin, you have played the devil's 
part ! Happy those who, at however great a distance, 
and in however imperfect a manner, have attempted to 
follow Christ ! " Well done, good and faithful serv- 
ant," shall reward the pains, and crown the prayers, 
that sought to raise the fallen and save the lost. 

In conclusion — 

1. This review, God's Spirit blessing it, should 
awaken careless sinners. 
If there was no remedy, if you were past redemp- 



68 



THE EEVIEW. 



tion, I ^ ould no more seek to waken you than I would 
one who slept to-night, and was to be hanged to-mor- 
row. Poor wretch, let him sleep on and take his rest 
— sufficient for the day is the evil thereof. A boat 
was once seen sweeping along the rapid that hurries to 
the Falls of Niagara. To the horror of some that 
watched it from the shore, they saw one aboard ; and 
also asleep. Such a time and place for sleeping 1 They 
ran ; they shouted ; they cried. The sleeper woke ; 
and at one wild, rapid glance took in all his danger. 
Yet what won't a man do for his life ? To seize the 
oars and pull the boat's head round to the shore, was 
the work of an instant. With death in the thunders 
of the cateract, roaring loud and louder, near and 
nearer in his ear, how he pulled ! But unless God had 
sent down the eagle that sailed in the blue skies over- 
head to bear him away upon her wings, there was no 
hope. The water, sweeping onward with resistless 
power, shot him like an arrow to the brink. It was 
cruel to waken him. But, as nigh to destruction, near 
hell as that, you may be saved ; plucked from the very 
edge of ruin — -just when you are going over. Jesus 
can save at the uttermost. He waits now to save ; 
though how much longer he shall wait to hear from 
your lips the cry, " Save me," I know not. Beware ! 
The patience of God is lasting, but not everlasting. 

2. This review should stir up God's people. 

You are not what you should be ; you are not what 
you might have been. How much further on had we 
been in the way to Zion, if we had never slept ! How 
much further advanced in grace, had we turned oui 



THE REVIEW. 



69 



opportunities to the best account ! See how great a 
difference one year makes on a thriving child ! — alas ! 
how little difference any one year, the last twelve 
months have made on us ! No wonder ! We have 
slept when we should have watched ; rested, when we 
should have run ; fled, when we should have fought ; 
fallen, when we should have stood. The battle went 
against us because we did not go to it in the power of 
prayer, and in the strength of the Lord ; and now prec- 
ious opportunities of getting and of doing good are gone 
— never, never to return. There is a way, however, 
of redeeming lost time, as well as lost fortunes and es- 
tates. The woodman is taking it, who with sturdy arm 
and gleaming axe makes his blows fall thick and fast 
on the groaning tree ; the rider, who spurs his foaming 
steed to its utmost mettle ; the seaman who, flying 
from the pirate's guns, shakes out all his canvas, and 
under bending spars, plunges through the seething 
deep ; the blacksmith who, by the glowing forge, and 
with the sweat standing on his swarthy brow, plies his 
hammer on the ringing anvil — doing in one hour the 
work of two. So may years be redeemed ; the very 
past, after a fashion, recalled, and its shadow turned 
back on Time's old dial. Give your whole soul to this 
work ; throw yourselves on your knees ; crying to God 
for help, seek the aids of the Holy Spirit ; and to 
whatever asks you to turn aside from making your 
calling and election sure, say, with Nehemiah, " I have 
a great work to do, therefore, I cannot come down." 



§0 



" Seek ye the Lord while he may be found.' — Isa. lv. 6. 

If Adam and Eve were somewhat ignorant, as wc 
suppose them to have been, of God's omniscience, no 
wonder that they attempted to escape his notice. " The 
wicked fleeth when no man pursueth." Nothing more 
natural for them than, as soon as they heard his step 
in the garden, to run, and make for the nearest and 
thickest bush. They had broken his law, and knew 
the consequences — " In the day that thou eatest thereof, 
thou shalt surely die." To have waited by the tree 
when they heard God, would have been to wait for 
death ; to have left the bush where they lay concealed 
would have been to court it. To that guilty pair, as 
they crouched in fear and terror under the tree, the 
words of the text were the last we should have 
addressed ; and the last they would have listened to. 
Their interest appeared to lie, not in seeking the Lord, 
but in fleeing from him ; and such counsel as this would 
have appeared to come from that malignant devil who 
had planned, and now wished to complete, their ruin. 
No angel, ignorant of God's purpose, and looking 
with pity on our fallen parents, none but the fiend who 
gloried in the mischief he had wrought, would have 
(to) 



NO DELAY. 



71 



given them at that moment the advice that the Bible 
now gives us — " Seek ye the Lord while he may be 
found ; call ye upon him while he is near." 

Why so ? why would it have seemed to be for Adam 
and Eve's interest to reject the counsel which it is so 
much for ours to take ? Is there not the same law 
both to us and them — " The soul that sinneth, it shall 
die l v Is not God known to both as a God of justice 
to enact such a law, and of truth to execute it ? Are 
not both the children and the parents conscious that 
as sinners, they stand equally exposed to its tremen- 
dous punishment ? Why, then, is it not natural for us, 
instead of seeking the Lord, to flee his presence in 
dread of his avenging power? The difference be- 
tween their circumstances and ours lies in this — that 
when they fled from God in Eden, their knowledge of 
him was circumscribed as compared with ours. Igno- 
rant as yet of a mercy which was about for the first 
time to be revealed, they knew him only as a God of 
justice, of holiness, and of truth. But what makes it 
your plain as well as highest interest to seek the 
Lord, is that you know what they did not — that he is 
very pitiful and of great mercy ; that he is not willing 
that any should perish ; that he hath no pleasure in 
the death of the sinner ; and that if he stands with 
the sword of justice glittering in one hand, in the 
other he holds out for your acceptance an ample par- 
don, and a blood-bought crown. 

Had Adam and Eve known that he, whose voice 
they heard with such terror in the garden, had come 
not to slay but to save them ; not to destroy them, 



72 



NO DELAY. 



but their enemy ; not to give them a grave, but hope 
in the promise of a Saviour, how had they hastened to 
fall at his feet, and cry, Father forgive us, we knew 
not what we did — flying as fast to God as they fled 
from God ? Now, what they would have done had 
they known this, knowing it, we should certainly do. 
To seek him, were he merely a God of unbending jus- 
tice, would be to rush on the bosses of the Almighty's 
buckler, and precipitate our ruin. But to all who 
seek him through a Redeemer, he is merciful and gra- 
cious, long-suffering, and slow to wrath, abundant in 
goodness and in truth. Our highest interests, there- 
fore, our present, and future, and eternal happiness, 
lie in yielding implicit and immediate obedience to 
the call, Seek ye the Lord while he may be found. 
How does the lapse of years, the close of every day, 
enforce this ? The setting sun ; the clouds that, like 
the infirmities of age, gather round his sinking head ; 
the fading light ; the workman wending homeward, 
the peasant leaving his plough in the furrow, the 
weaver his shuttle on the loom ; the larks that have 
dropped out of silent skies ; the birds sitting mute on 
the branches ; the flowers with their eyes closed and 
leaves folded up ; the tenants of lone cottages and 
crowded city retiring to rest ; and by and bye the 
silence of a world wrapped in darkness and sleep — 
these are suggestive to a thoughtful mind of the close 
of life, the sleep of death, and our bed beneath a 
grassy sod. And each night that sun, whose lines go 
throughout all the earth, and his words to the ends of 
the world, with the heavens for his pulpit and the 



NO DELAY. 



73 



world for his audience, seems as he leaves us to say, 
Work while it is called to-day, seeing that the night 
cometh when no man can work. 

I. Consider what we are to understand by seeking the 
Lord. 

The sense in which this is to be taken is explained 
by the succeeding verses — " Let the wicked forsake 
his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts : and 
let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy 
upon him ; and to our God, for he will abundantly 
pardon. For my thoughts are not your thoughts, 
neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord. For 
as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my 
ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than 
your thoughts." It is as a God, therefore, who will 
have mercy on the worst, and abundantly pardon the 
wickedest, that we are to seek the Lord — seeking 
him without a day's, or even an hour's, delay. To 
approach him in any other character, would be to 
throw ourselves on a naked sword — were in effect to 
offer the profane swearer's prayer, to pray that God 
would damn us. 

We may, as man has often done, stand at a human 
bar conscious of our innocence. Strong in our in- 
tegrity, and confident that the day of trial will prove 
us guiltless of the crimes laid to our charge, roll the 
cloud from our character, and cover our accusers with 
shame and confusion, we may refuse to put in a plea 
for mercy ; boldly declaring that we want nothing 
more, and will accept of nothing less, than justice— 
4. 



74 



NO DELAY. 



impartial justice. At God's tribunal, however, it Is 
very different. There, simple justice were sure damna- 
tion. The Lord said to the Devil, " Hast thou con- 
sidered my servant Job, that there is none like him 
on the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that 
feareth God, and escheweth evil ?" yet, this perfect 
and upright man asks, " How should man be just with 
God ? if he will contend with him, he cannot answer 
one in a thousand." The Psalmist was " a man after 
God's own heart," the most devout of men ; yet he 
trembles at the thought of being dealt with on mere 
principles of justice. He deprecates it ; he prays ex- 
pressly and earnestly against it — saying, enter not 
into judgment with thy servant, for in thy sight shall 
no man living be justified. 

It is therefore, in his double aspect, combined but 
not contradictory character, as at once just and the 
justifier of them that believe in Jesus, as a God of jus- 
tice to punish sin in the surety, and as a God of mercy 
to pardon it in the sinner, that we are to seek the Lord ; 
and all the blessings which in that gracious character 
he has, and he promises, to bestow. Thus, to seek the 
Lord is just to approach him by faith ; and in the par- 
don of sin and our sanctification, in a blood-bought 
title, and a Spirit-wrought meetness for the heavenly 
kingdom, to seek those benefits of redemption which 
Christ so dearly purchased, God so freely gives, and 
man so fully needs. " How shall we escape if we neg- 
lect this great salvation ?" Therefore, seek the Lord 
while he is to be found. 



NO DELAY. 



75 



II. Inquire when these things are to be obtained, or, to 
use the words of my text, when the Lord is to be 
found ? — and we remark, 

1. That the Lord, as bestowing the pardon of sin 
and salvation of the soul, is to be found in this world, 
not in another. 

Our spirits pass into the eternal world so soon as 
death dissolves the union that binds body and soul to- 
gether. And what gives an awful solemnity to the last 
breath, the last quiver of the lips, that long shivering 
sigh which tells that all is over, is the thought that at 
that moment the condition of the dead is forever fixed. 
While the last groan is sounding in our ears, ere we 
have time to close the filmy eyes, to imprint a kiss on 
the marble brow, to move one step from the bedside, 
the soul has entered on a destiny of inexpressible hap- 
piness, or unutterable woe. The case of any, in whose 
fate we have felt a tender interest, but who died, alas, 
without leaving us any good ground for hope, nay, the 
awful, but certain fact, that many thus die, would make 
us, had we the shadow of a ground for it, believe, and 
cling to the belief, that hope survives this life ; and 
that a man might be pardoned in another world who 
went unpardoned out of this. What God might have 
done had he so chosen, I dare not say. Whether he 
might have made one offer more of mercy to the dis- 
embodied spirit ; whether, after revealing to its aston- 
ished gaze the glories of heaven and the misery of hell, 
letting it hear the praises of the saved and the groans 
of the lost, he might have made one last offer of a 
Saviour, I dare not conjecture. There are truths in 



76 



NO DELAY. 



his word more or less clear to our eye, more or less 
comprehensible by our understanding ; there are pas- 
sages in the Holy Scriptures where a child may wait 
through, and others where a giant must swim. But if 
there is one doctrine more clearly revealed than ano- 
ther it is this — that God has made no such offer ; and 
makes no^e. As the tree falleth so it lieth — the law 
of the other world this, He that is unjust, let him be 
unjust still ; and he which is filthy, let him be filthy 
still ; and he that is righteous, let him be righteous 
still ; and he that is holy, let him be holy still. 

Who doubts that they who pass out of this life re- 
jecting Cnrist shall not have taken one step into ano- 
ther when they shall regret, bitterly regret, their folly ? 
It shall be too late for regrets then. The cry has 
arisen ; the lamps are lighted ; the bridegroom has 
entered ; ihe door is shut — and now they who would 
not open + o Christ, nor receive him into their hearts, 
when he stood knocking at their doors, shall in vain 
knock at his, crying, Lord, Lord, open unto us. What 
a change 1 What a change to any at the moment of 
departure — from the seen to the unseen ; from the soci- 
ety of men to that of angels ; from the symbols of com- 
munion to the living presence of Christ ; from the 
darkness cf a dying scene to the light that is inacces- 
sible, and full of glory ; from the echo of our own 
groans, and the sounds of weeping, to the burst of ten 
times ten thousand voices, singing the songs of the re- 
deemed. But greater changes than these to the impen- 
itent and unbelieving, when the Father who gave up 
his Son to die for us, shall turn a deaf ear to their cries 



NO DELAY. 



77 



for mercy ; and the Son who dyed his cross red with 
the blood of love, and invited sinners to his arms, will 
bid them begone, saying, Depart from me, I never knew 
you, ye workers of iniquity. To seek the Lord, there- 
fore, while he may be found, in other words, to seek 
pardon and reconciliation when they may be obtained, 
is to seek them in time. Here is a throne of grace, 
but yonder a throne of justice ; here Christ is a sav- 
iour, but yonder he acts the part of a judge. That 
judge is at the door — therefore, whatsoevei thy hand 
findeth to do, do it with all thy might, for there is no 
work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the 
grave, whither thou goest. 

2. That the Lord, as bestowing the pardon of sin 
and salvation of the soul, is not to be found on a 
death-bed. 

Yet that is the place, and the last hours of life the 
time, when many intend to seek him. They buoy them- 
selves up with the hope of procuring the salvation 
then, which, till then, they have resolved to reject or 
at least to neglect. It is with dim and dying eyes 
they are to read their Bibles ; it is with panting, fal- 
tering, dying voice they are to pray for mercy ; it is 
when the hand of Death is thundering loud at the 
door, and he stands grim by their bedside, that they 
are to take the advice of my text and turn to the Lord. 
What folly ! Is this your plan ? And what is it in 
this scheme that makes you think it safe and good ? 
It appears to me a desperate venture ; so desperate, 
that I wonder that the Devil, with all his arts and 
power to deceive, can persuade any man to venture on 



78 



NO DELAY. 



it who is endowed with reason, and possesses a glim- 
mering of sense. " Surely in vain," says Solomon, 
" the net is spread in sight of any bird but here, 
not as there where the trap is temptingly baited and 
cunningly masked, the meshes of the net and the 
person of the fowler are patent to all eyes. Look 
at it! 

First, Is this plan honouring to God, that we expect 
him, in the pardon of sin and salvation of our souls, 
to grant us at death what we have obstinately and per- 
sistently refused all our days ? It is a plain mockery 
of God. It says, I will not turn to him till I can do 
no better — I will trample on his laws as long as I can 
do it safely — I will keep his Son standing at the door, 
till, weary, he turns to depart, and his last knock 
warns me that it is high time to open — I will give my 
health and vigour, the bloom of my youth, the mature 
powers of my manhood, the morning, the noon-day, 
even the evening of my life to the devil, the world, and 
the flesh — and the God that loved me, and the Saviour 
whc pitied me and died for me, I will put off with the 
few, weak, worthless hours that precede the fall of the 
curtain ; the close of life. How can a plan so insult- 
ing to God, and dishonouring to his Son, succeed? 
Be not deceived. God is not mocked. He refuses 
these vile dregs of life. " If ye offer," he says, " the 
blind for sacrifice, is it not evil ? If ye offer the lame 
and the sick, is it not evil ? Offer it now to thy gov- 
ernor, will he be pleased with thee, or accept thy per- 
son ? saith the Lord of hosts. A son honoureth his 
father and a servant his master \ if, then, I be a father, 



NO DELAY. 



79 



where is mine honour, If I be a master, where is my 
fear?" 

Secondly, Is it because death is a suitable and con- 
venient period for seeking the pardon of sin and salva- 
tion of the soul, that we propose to delay this matter 
till then ? Suitable, convenient ! Does death send us 
warning of his approach ; giving due and timely 
notice that after so many weeks or days, we may look 
for a visit from the King of Terrors? Like other 
kings, is he always preceded by messengers to pre- 
pare the way, and make all things ready for his re- 
ception? No. The robber comes under the cloud 
of night ; steals quietly into your house ; treads the 
floor with muffled feet ; and before you wake to seizo 
his hand, has you by the throat, and plants a dagger 
in your heart. So death may come. " I come," says 
our Lord, "as a thief in the night — " "Behold I 
come quickly." Coming so, the procrastinating die 
without hope. And though death should make no such 
stealthy attack, nor leap on us with the suddenness of 
a tiger's spring, whoever looked on a dying scene to 
make resolutions such as these — I will delay seeking 
the Lord till my body is racked with these pains, my 
mind reeling in this wild delirium ; not till I cannot 
lift my head from its pillow, not till I cannot read a 
line of the Bible, not till I can neither pray nor listen 
to the prayers of others, will I seek the Lord ! I ven- 
ture to say that wherever man made such a resolution, 
no man in his sober senses ever made it by a dying- 
bed. No. Death has enough to do with itself. It is 
a time not to seek, but to enioy the comforts of religion j 



80 



NO DELAY. 



and if there is one impression which life's closing 
scene makes most strongly and deeply on the specta- 
tor, it is this, Now is the accepted time, this is the day 
of salvation. 

Thirdly, Is it because experience and the Bible en- 
courages us to believe that the pardon of sin and sal- 
vation of the soul are most likely to be found at death, 
that we do not seek and call upon the Lord now ? 
Who believes that there are many in heaven, and but 
few in hell, who deferred the duty of my text to dying 
hours ? The reverse is the case. I have no doubt of 
that. Hell is paved with good intentions ; and as 
there are few in the place of misery but intended be- 
fore they left the world to seek the Lord, there are few 
in glory, who were called, justified, and sanctified, so 
late as the eleventh hour. The Bible records the 
names and history of many who are there now ; and 
how many of them were saved on a death-bed ? Many ? 
a few of them ? No. One single case of a call at the 
eleventh hour is all we find. One, as has been said, to 
teach none to despair, and but one to teach none to 
presume. 

3. The Lord, as bestowing pardon and salvation, is 
more likely to be found now than at any future time. 
We can foretell neither what, nor where we shall be 
to-morrow. By to-morrow, the place that now knows 
us may know us no more forever. This may be our 
last Sabbath on earth ; this the last occasion on 
which we shall ever all meet together till the resurrec- 
tion ; this the last time we may ever look on an earthly 
church ; and ere these doors are agained opened fo* 



NO DELAY. 



81 



worship, for some of us a grave may have opened, and 
over us a grave may have closed. Sudden death either 
by accident or disease, the sun rising on a healthy 
form and setting on a breathless corpse, such events 
are ever warning us. And in the face of such warn- 
ings what folly it is to fold the hands, and compose our- 
selves anew to sleep, counting on this day being as 
yesterday, and to-morrow as to-day ! 

Suppose it were so ; and that, like Hezekiah, we had 
other fifteen years added to our life, I still stand upon 
my ground ; and maintain that we are more likely to 
find the Lord this day than during any other period of 
this new lease. Sin is like the descent of a hill, where 
every step we take increases the difficulty of our re- 
turn. Sin is like a river in its course ; the longer it 
runs, it wears a deeper channel, and the farther from 
the fountain, it swells in volume and acquires a greater 
strength. Sin is like a tree in its progress ; the long- 
er it grows, it spreads its roots the wider ; grows 
taller ; grows thicker ; till the sapling which once an 
infant's arm could bend, raises its head aloft, defiant 
of the storm. Sin in its habits becomes stronger every 
day — the heart grows harder ; the conscience grows 
duller ; the distance between God and the soul grows 
greater ; and, like a rock hurled from the mountain's 
top, the farther we descend, we go down, and down, 
and down, with greater and greater rapidity. How 
easy, for example, is it to touch the conscience of child- 
hood ; but how difficult to break in on the torpor of a 
hoary head ! A child, with few sins on his young head, 
will tremble at the idea of death and judgment ; while 
4* 



82 



NO DELAY. 



the old man lies on his dying bed, and whether you 
thunder in Lis ears the terrors of a broken law, or, 
holding up the cross before his dim eyes, tell him of 
the love of Jesus, no tears run down these furrowed 
cheeks, nor prayers move lips, whose oaths are re- 
corded in the books of judgment. 

I know that God, bending stubborn knees, and 
breaking the hardest heart, can call at the eleventh 
hour. Is anything too hard for me ? saith the Lord. 
He saves at the very uttermost. But I would say to 
him who tries how near he may go to hell, and yet be 
saved, It is a dangerous experiment — a desperate ven- 
ture. It provokes God to recall his Spirit, and leave 
you to your fate, saying, He is joined to his idols, let 
him alone. 

III. The shortness and uncertainty of life are strong 
reasons for seeking pardon and salvation now. 

There is nothing so certain as death ; and what 
more uncertain than life ? How brief it is ! Who 
stood sentinel by the gate of Shushan when the royal 
couriers, bearing hope to the Jews, dashed through, 
burying their spurs in their horses' flanks — who lately 
stood on the platform by the iron rails that stretch 
from Holyhead to London, when, signals flashed or 
along the line to stop the traffic and keep all clear, a. 
engine and carriage dashed by with tidings of peac 
or war from America — saw an image of our life. The 
eagle poising herself a moment on the wing, and then 
rushing at her prey ; t^e ship that, throwing the spray 
from her bows, scuds before the gale ; the shuttle 



NO DELAY. 



83 



flashing through the loom ; the shadow of a cloud 
sweeping the hill-side, and then gone for ever, nor 
leaving a trace behind ; the summer flowers that, van- 
ishing, have left our gardens bare, and where were 
spread out the colours of the rainbow, only dull, black 
earth, or the rotting wrecks of beauty — these, with 
many other fleeting things, are emblems by which God 
through nature teaches us how frail we are ; at the 
longest, how short our days. What need, therefore, 
there is to seize the passing moments — seeking the 
Lord while he is to be found. 

We put this off by taking a wrong measure of our 
days. There are standard measures, imperial meas- 
ures, as they are called, by which the business of oui 
shops and markets, selling and buying, the transac- 
tions of commerce, are regulated. And if men would 
only be persuaded to regulate the business of their 
souls, the transactions between them, their conscience, 
and their God, by the royal standard and measure of 
human life, with what earnestness should we now seek 
the Lord ! what crowds would throng the door of mercy 
— each one trembling lest it should be shut before he 
got in ! But, alas, many take a false measure ; and con- 
clude that there is no hurry ; no need of haste in seek- 
ing salvation. For example, My father, says one man, 
lived to such and such an age — my grandfather was 
an old man before he died — I am come of a long-lived 
race ; and such persons, taking the age of their ances- 
tors as the measure of their life, count on many years, 
and time enough left to seek a Saviour. Another says, 
I enjoy the best of health, my constitution is sound. 



84 



NO DELAY. 



my frame is robust ; no drunkard nor libertine, noi 
given to any excess, my habits are temperate ; every 
thing about me is favourable to longevity. And so, ai 
every child hopes to be a youth, and every youth i 
man, such men expect to reach old age ; while old men 
grey-headed, bent under the weight of years, and tot 
tering on the brink of the grave, count on growing 
older still. Why not ? Don't they know people who 
have lived to greater years than theirs ? Thus men 
play with the great work my text calls us to do — play- 
ing at a game where the devil will cheat them, and 
beat them. They stake their salvation on a cast of the 
dice. 

May God persuade you to do otherwise ! None else 
can. In vain the orator here plies his arts. The Devil 
laughs at oratory. He stands in more fear of a poor 
saint on his knees than of the greatest eloquence of the 
pulpit. Man may produce a temporary, surface impres- 
sion, like the preaching friar who once resorted to a 
violent stroke of rhetoric. Addressing an audience in 
Italy at Lent time, with great power and pathos, on 
such topics as judgment and eternity, he drew a graph- 
ic picture of man's death — the dying struggles ; the 
corpse ; the funeral ; the grave ; its loathsome hor- 
rors ; the vanity it pours on youth, and all the bravery 
and glory of this world. This done, amid the breath- 
less silence of his congregation, he wound all up by 
fixing his eyes on a lovely woman before him — start- 
ling her, as, pulling from the folds of his gown a naked 
skull, he thrust it, grinning, in her face, and said., Such 
you shall be ! The effect was electric. It drove th* 



NO DELAY. 



85 



colour from her rosy cheek, and sent a thrill of horror 
through the whole assembly — yet but a passing shock 
This was summoning Death to the pulpit. But I 
have no faith in his preaching. A daily preacher and 
a great preacher, none seems to have a more drowsy, 
inattentive, unreflecting audience. He can pluck a 
king from his throne in the midst of his guards ; but 
not a sinner from perishing. He severs the bond that 
binds husband and wife, the mother to her darling, my 
spirit to this flesh ; but not the feeblest tie that binds 
a soul to sin. How solemn, startling, are the sermons 
he preaches on my text, on the shortness of life, on the 
vanity of the world ; yet there is no blessing but with 
the Lord. With him is the residue of the Spirit — 
and without that, whether Death or dying man be the 
preacher, sermons are seed without the shower. There- 
fore with Moses, we address ourselves to God, praying, 
" So teach us to number our days, that we may apply 
our hearts to wisdom" — seeking the Lord while he* 
may be found, and calling upon him while he is near. 



u It is easier for heaven and earth to pass, than one tittle of the law to 
fail." — Luke xvi. 17. 

The " law " stands here, as in some other places of 
Scripture, for the whole revealed will of God. The 
heavens where, after the lapse of many thousand years, 
the stars are burning as bright as the day they were 
kindled ; and the earth, whose hoar mountains have 
looked down unchanged on successive generations flow- 
ing on to the grave, as the river that washes their feet 
flows on to the sea, stand here the symbols of perpetu- 
ity. And thus, by declaring that heaven and earth 
shall sooner pass, these lofty hills be sooner levelled 
with the plain, these stars sooner drop, or that sun be 
be blotted from the sky, than God's word, or any part 
of it, fail of fulfilment — our Lord by the boldest figures 
and in the strongest manner asserts its perpetuity. 

This law or will of God has been revealed to us in 
two ways — 

First, by conscience, which works after the manner 
so beautifully set forth in the ring that a great ma- 
gician, according to an eastern tale, presented to his 
prince. The gift was of inestimable value ; not for 
the diamonds, and xubies, and pearls, that gemmed it, 

(86) 



THE UNCHANGEABLE WORD. 



81 



but for a rare and mystic property in the metal. It 
sat easily enough on the finger in ordinary circum- 
stances ; but so soon as its wearer formed a bad 
thought, designed or committed a bad action, the ring 
became a monitor. Suddenly contracting, it pressed 
painfully on his finger, warning him of sin. Such a 
ring, thank God, is not the peculiar property of kings ; 
all, the poorest of us, those that wear none other, pos- 
sess and wear this inestimable jewel — for the ring of 
the fable is just that conscience, which is the voice of 
God within us ; which is his law, engraven by the fin- 
ger of God, not on Sinai's granite tables, but on the 
fleshy tablets of the heart ; which, enthroned as a sov- 
ereign in every bosom, commends us when we do right, 
and condemns us when we do wrong. But this con- 
science, as an expression of the law or will and mind 
of God, is not now to be implicitly depended on. It 
is not infallible. What was true to its office in Eden, 
has been deranged and shattered by the Fall ; and now 
lies, as I have seen a sun-dial in the neglected garden 
of an old, desolate ruin, thrown from its pedestal, pros- 
trate on the ground, and covered by tall, rank weeds. 
So far from being since that fatal event an infallible 
directory of duty, conscience has often lent its sanction 
to the grossest errors, and prompted to the greatest 
crimes. Did not Saul of Tarsus, for instance, hale men 
and women to prison ; compel them to blaspheme ; and 
imbrue his hands in saintly blood, while conscience ap- 
proved the deed — he judging the while that he did God 
service ? What wild and profane imaginations has it 
accepted as the oracles of God ! and, as if fiends had 



88 



THE UNCHANGEABLE WORD. 



*aken possession of a God-deserted shrine, have not 
the foulest crimes as well as the most shocking cruel- 
ties, been perpetrated in its name ? Read the Book of 
Martyrs, read the sufferings of our own forefathers ; 
and, under the cowl of a shaven monk, or the trappings 
of a haughty churchman, you shall see conscience per- 
secuting the saints of God, and dragging even tender 
women and children to the bloody scaffold or the burn- 
ing stake. With eyes swimming in tears, or flashing 
fire, we close the painful record, to apply to Conscience 
the words addressed to Liberty by the French heroine, 
when, passing its statue, she rose in the cart that bore 
her to the guillotine, and throwing up her arms, ex- 
claimed, " Liberty, what crimes have been done in 
thy name ! " And what crimes in thine, Conscience ! 
deeds from which even humanity shrinks ; against which 
religion lifts her loudest protest ; and which furnish 
the best explanation of these awful words, " If the 
light that is in you be darkness, how great is that 
larkness ! " 

So far as doctrines and duties are concerned, not 
conscience, but the revealed Word of God, is our one, 
only sure and safe directory. " Search the Scriptures," 
Bays our Lord, " for in them ye think ye have eternal 
life, and they are they which testify of me." " To the 
law and to the testimony," says another, " if they 
speak not according to these, there is no truth in them." 
However honest people may be, with whatever halo 
piety has surrounded them, however burning the zeal 
that inspires them, though they walk the world in robes 
of light, speak with the tongues of angels, give theb- 



THE TTN CHANGE ABLE WORD. 



89 



goods to feed the poor, nay, giving their bodies to be 
burned, die martyrs for their principles, if they speaK 
not according to these, there is no truth in them. Who 
does not admire honesty, and zeal, and self-denial ? 
Still, men's willingness to suffer for their principles 
proves only their sincerity. It does not prove their 
soundness. The " law," therefore, on which my text 
pronounces this high eulogium, that form of the word 
of God which, amidst life's rudest tempests, and death's 
swelling waters, proves an anchor of the soul, sure and 
steadfast, is the Bible — that revealed Word which 
holy men of old spake, or wrote as they were moved 
by the Holy Ghost. Now let me — 

I. Set forth some general observations on this word or 
law of God. 

How many things could I say which should raise it 
in your esteem, and enhancing its value, win for it a 
larger share of your time — a closer and more prayerful 
study ! Whitefield said that some made so little use of 
their Bibles, that you might write the word damnation 
on the dust that covered them. I do not suspect any 
of you of so entirely neglecting it, or treating it, as 
they did in the reign before Josiah's, when the only 
copy of the Bible in the whole land was swept with 
cobwebs into a corner among old lumber of the Temple. 
No. Thank God, more Bibles are in circulation now 
than copies of any other book. To illustrate this one, 
precious volume, more pens have been worn, more re- 
searches made, more books written, more days and 
nights spent, than on all other bocks besides. It might 



90 



THE UNCHANGEABLE WORD 



well be so. It is the first of books ; beyond all other? 
the most venerable for its age, and the most valuable 
for its matter. Apart from its divine authority, there 
is more glowing eloquence, more noble sentiments, more 
melting pathos, more beautiful poetry, within its boards 
than anywhere else. From its pages moralists have 
borrowed their noblest maxims, and poets their finest 
thoughts. What can be said of no other, has been 
well, and justly, and beautifully said of this — it has 
God for its author, truth without any mixture of error 
for its matter, and salvation for its end. 

The Bible has done more to bless society, to promote 
brotherhood, commerce, happiness, peace, and liberty, 
in the world, than any other book, and all other books 
together. How true the poet's glowing exclamation — 

" He is a freeman whom the truth makes free, 
And all are slaves besides.** 

And if swords are ever to be beaten into ploughshares, 
and their shackles struck from the limbs of slaves, it is 
by no other instrumentality than this. And if, amid 
the shouts of joyful and emancipated nations, the form 
of Liberty is one day to rise on every shore, it shall 
find no firm pedestal to stand on but the word of God. 
At once the support and ornament of free countries 
and evangelical Churches, like the symbol of God's 
presence in the desert, that word is light in the form 
of a pillar. 

The wealth of the poor, by blessing them with that 
contentment which makes poverty rich, it is also thr 



THE UNCHANGEABLE WORD. 91 



shield of wealth — protecting the few that are rich 
against the many that are poor. Wondrous book ! it 
levels all, and yet leaves variety of ranks ; it humbles 
the lofty, and exalts the lowliest ; it condemns the best, 
and yet saves the worst ; it engages the study of an- 
gels, and is not above the understanding of a little 
child ; it shews us man raised to the position of a son 
of God, and the Son of God stooping to the condition 
of a man. It heals by wounding, and kills to make 
alive. It is an armory of heavenly weapons, a labora- 
tory of infallible medicines, a mine of exhaustless 
wealth. Teaching kings how to reign and subjects 
how to obey, masters how to rule and domestics how to 
serve, pastors how to preach and people how to hear, 
teachers how to instruct and pupils how to learn, hus- 
bands how to love their wives and wives how to obey 
their husbands, it contains rules for men in all possible 
conditions of life. It is a guide-book for every road ; 
a chart for every sea ; a medicine for every malady ; a 
balm for every wound ; and a comfort for every grief. 
Divinely adapted to our circumstances, whatever these 
may be, we can say of this book as David said of the 
giant's sword, " Give me that, there is none like it." 
Rob us of the Bible, and our sky has lost its sun ; and in 
other, even in the best of other books, we have naught 
left but the glimmer of twinkling stars. Now, my text 
crowns all these eulogies ; like the keystone of the 
arch that binds all the parts of the span together, it 
gives the rest their power and value ; for what wei« 
all the promises and prospects of this sacred volume 
unless we knew that they could not fail, and were as* 



92 



THE UNCHANGEABLE WORD . 



sured by him who is the Truth, as well as the Way and 
the Life, that it were " easier for heaven and earth to 
pass, than one tittle of the law to fail ?" 

II. My text is true of the Bible as a Book divinely in- 
spired. 

I know a castle that, rising in old days from its rocky 
platform, once looked proudly down on the rolling sea. 
' Ichabod " stands written on its walls — the glory is 
departed ; and all that now remains of its ancient 
grandeur is a shattered curtain, and some old grey 
towers that are nodding to their fall. The rock where 
it stood so long, defiant of time and man, yielded in the 
course of ages to a power which, retiring yet returning 
with every tide, kept up a ceaseless warfare ; wearing 
away its base, and hollowing out its solid substance 
into sounding caverns. Then some wild, winter night, 
when ships were sinking, and wives were weeping, and 
brave men were drowning, the sea came on in the full 
swing of the storm, and breached its mighty walls — 
sweeping masonry and rock out into the foaming deep. 
And now I have seen the waves breaking and the fish- 
erman's boat sailing over the stones of that old castle's 
foundations ; while the billows, playing with what they 
had conquered, rolled them smooth and round amid the 
shingle of the sounding beach. 

In the Bible our religion stands on a rock — but not 
like that, a ruin of other days. Still, if our faith is 
not a ruin, though a majestic one, or if the Church of 
Christ does not stand in the world, like the decaying 
and deserted temple of a worn-out superstition, it i* 



THE UNCHANGEABLE WORD. 



93 



not because the word of God has not been doubted, 
denied, attacked, and vilified. It has often been re- 
viled ; but it has never been refuted. Its foundations 
have been examined by the most searching eyes. In 
Hume, and Gibbon, and Voltaire, and La Place, to 
pass such coarse and vulgar assailants as Tom Paine 
and Carlisle, with their few living followers, the Bible 
has had to sustain the assaults of the greatest talent, 
the sharpest wit, and the acutest intellects. To make 
it appear a cunningly-devised fable, philosophers have 
sought arguments amid the mysteries of science, and 
travellers amid the hoar remains of antiquity ; for 
that purpose, geologists have ransacked the bowels 
of the earth, and astronomers the stars of heaven ; 
and yet, after sustaining the most cunningly-devised 
and ably-executed assaults of eighteen hundred years, 
there it stands ; and shall stand, defiant of time, of 
men, of devils — a glorious illustration of the words of 
its Founder, " On this rock have I built my Church, 
and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it !" 

Since those eighteen hundred years began to run, 
what revolutions time has wrought ! what changes he 
has seen ! The oldest monarchies have been over- 
thrown ; the dawn of truth has chased away the dark- 
ness of a long night ; the maxims of statesmen and 
the theories of science have shifted like the wind ; 
success has crowned the boldest innovator on all old 
established systems Jove is gone, but not Jehovah, 
the Hebrew's God. On Grecian headlands and Ro- 
man hills, the temples of Jupiter stand in mouldering 
ruin ; but temples sacred to Jesus are rising on every 



94 



THE UNCHANGEABLE WORD. 



shore. Since John wrote in his cell at Patmos, and 
Paul preached in his own hired house at Rome, the 
world has been turned upside down ; all old things 
have passed away ; all things on earth have changed 
but one. Rivalling in fixedness, and more than rival- 
ling in brightness, the stars that saw our world born 
and shall see it die, that rejoiced in its birth and shall 
be mourners at its burial, the word of our God stands 
for ever. Time, that weakens all things else, has but 
strengthened the impregnable position of the believer's 
faith, and hope, and confidence. And as, year by 
year, the tree adds another ring to its circumference, 
every age has added the testimony of its events to 
this great truth, " The grass withereth, and the flower 
fadeth, but the word of the Lord shall endure for 
ever." 

III. For practical application of my text, I remark, — 

1. It is true of the threatenings of the word that it 
is easier for heaven and earth to pass, than one tittle 
of the law to fail. 

If there are more blessed there are more awful 
words in the Bible than in any other book, which in 
this respect is like the skies that hold at once the 
most blessed and the most baneful elements — soft 
dews to bathe the opening rose, and bolts that rend 
the oak asunder. "He that hath ears to hear, let 
him hear." For example, — The wicked shall be cast 
into hell, — Flee from the wrath to come, — Whoso- 
ever believeth not the Son shall not see life, but 
the wrath of God abideth on him, — Except ye re 



THE UNCHANGEABLE WORD. 



95 



pent ye shall all likewise perish, — Their worm dieth 
not, and their fire is not quenched, — and these awful 
words which I cannot think of Jesus pronouncing over 
any one he would have saved, and, in a sense, died 
to save, but with slow reluctance, " Depart from me, 
ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil 
and his angels." What a sentence! What words 
from him who bent looks of kindness on a weeping 
Magdalene ! Here every word is stunning ; crushing ; 
killing. Depart from me — ye cursed — into everlast- 
ing fire — prepared for the devil and his angels. They 
fall like thunder-bolts, but where ? I have read how 
a ship that rode the waters, armed with a broadside 
of cannon enough to sink any common craft, when in 
chase of another vessel, pointed her guns so as to 
send the shot crashing through the other's rigging, 
or leaping on the deep before her bows. Her pur- 
pose not to sink the flying sail, but wing her ; and 
compelling her to bring to, make her captive. She 
might have sunk the enemy ; but in so thundering 
she sought to save her, and make a prize of her. 
And just so does a long-suffering God with those that 
madly flee from him. Therefore the Bible threatens 
and thunders ; not otherwise. But why flee ? Vain 
the flight where God pursues ; and worse than vain ! 
He is willing to forgive, and what folly, what mad- 
ness to fly till, divine patience at length exhausted, 
he ceases to follow ! What then, the bolt, at first 
sent in love and mercy wide of the range, is shot 
right to the mark. Judgment, long delayed, over- 
takes us ; and we learn, but learn too late, that 



96 



THE UNCHANGEABLE WORD. 



whether he threatens or promises, as a God of truth } 
his word shall stand for ever. " Oh, that men were 
wise, that they would consider this in the day of their 

visitation I" 

" The wicked," says the Psalmist, " contemn God \ n 
and why ? " because he saith, he will not require." 
Where, they ask, is the promise of his coming ? Ah, 
they forget that it is as true of God's threatenings as 
of his promises, that although he delays he does not 
deny them. A reprieve is not a pardon. It defers 
the execution ; but does not necessarily cancel the 
sentence. And how many men in business, hard press- 
ed for money, and tottering on the edge of bank- 
ruptcy, have known too well that the bill which they 
had got the money-lender to renew was not thereby 
paid ? that, however often renewed, it has still to be 
paid ? and that the oftener, indeed, it is renewed, 
with interest added to the capital, the debt but grows 
the larger, the payment grows the heavier ? Just so 
shall it be with you if you persist in rejecting the 
Saviour, whom in God's name I now press on your 
acceptance. Every day of mercy here will but aggra- 
vate the misery of hereafter, and the reckoning, by 
being long in coming, will be the more terrible when 
it comes — as that storm roars with the loudest thun- 
der which has been the longest gathering. 

Considered, then, in the light of my text, if the 
offers of the gospel are most winning, how full of 
warning are its threatenings ! Men may play with 
your fears. I have seen a cunning, but foolish nurse, 
frighten her little charge into obedience by bugbears 



THE UNCHANGEABLE WORD. 97 

— stories of fleshless spectres and hideous monsters — 
the creations of her fancy, but the terrible object of 
its fears. God, however, plays neither with our hopes 
nor with our fears : neither mocks : nor flatters : nor 
deceives. " He is not a man that he should lie, nor 
the son of man that he should repent." " Hath he 
said, and shall he not do it ? hath he spoken, and 
shall it not come to pass ?" Believe me, that Paul 
had never wept, nor had Jesus died for sinners, ex- 
cept that their worm never dieth, and their fire is 
never quenched — except that, in regard to the threat- 
enings as much as to the promises of the Bible, heaven 
and earth shall sooner pass, than one tittle of the law 
shall fail. 

2. It is true of the promises of the gospel that " it 
is easier for heaven and earth to pass than one tittle 
of the law to fail." 

The traveller in the desert has heard that, far away 
among its burning sands, a river rolls. He has seen, 
or read, or heard of those who have sat on its willowy 
banks, and quenched their thirst, and drank in new 
life, and bathed their fevered frames in its cool, crystal 
pools. So, though with bleeding feet, and sinking 
limbs, and parched throat, and dizzy brain, led on by 
hope, and already in imagination quenching his fiery 
thirst, he stoutly fights a battle for life ; and at length 
reaches the brink. Alas ! what a sight meets his fixed 
and stony gaze ! He stands petrified. No wave, glit- 
tering in the sunbeams, ripples on the shore and invites 
the poor wretch to drink. The channel is full — but 
full of dry, white stones. The rains have failed ; the 
5 



98 THE UNCHANGEABLE WORD. 



river lias vanished. It saved others, him it cannot 
save. Victim of the bitterest disappointment, he lies 
down to expire ; losing life where others found it 
Now to such an accident, to hopes at once so fair but 
false, none are exposed who, rising to the call, " If any 
man thirst, let him come unto me and drink," seek life 
in Jesus — salvation in the grace of God. Have I been 
a wilderness unto thee, saith the Lord ? No, the stream 
of new Covenant mercies, which has its channel in this 
word, had its type in those waters which, springing to 
the rod of Moses, gushed from the smitten rock ; which 
the sand never drank, and the sun never dried, as, 
glistening in his beams, they followed Israel through 
the dusty desert on to the green borders of the prom- 
ised land. 

" He that hath ears to hear, let him hear." For ex- 
ample — " Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the 
waters ; and he that hath no money, come ye, buy and 
eat ; buy wine and milk without money and without 
price — Come unto me all ye that labour and are heavy 
laden, and I will give you rest — The Spirit and the 
bride say, Come ; and let him that heareth say, Come ; 
and let him that is athirst come, and whosoever will, 
let him come and take of the waters of life freely — 
Whosoever cometh unto me, I will in no wise cast out 
— Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thcu shalt be 
saved — Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of 
the earth— Fear not, for I am with you, be not afraid, 
for I am thy God — My grace is sufficient for thee — I 
will never leave thee nor forsake thee." How many 
thousands on earth, and what a crowned, countless mul- 



THE UNCHANGEABLE WORD. 39 

titude in glory, can set to their seals that these prom- 
ises are true ! Their light, how steady has it burned 
in the stormiest, how clear has it shone in life's dark- 
est, most tempestuous night ! Have not the saints of 
God, by help of these promises, quenched the violence 
of the fire ; and stopped the mouths of lions ; and 
trodden the serpent in the dust ; and plucked the 
crown from the brow of death ; and raised by the 
grave the shout of victory ; and — still greater tri- 
umph — confronted and conquered a world in arms ? 
Joyful thought ! there is not one promise of the gospel 
but is as good and true as on the day it was made. 
None of its offers are withdrawn. It is a medicine 
which does not grow useless by age ; a well that can- 
not be run dry or emptied by use. The bank of hea- 
ven, fearing no panic, nor ever suspending payment^ 
stands before the world with open doors ; ready to 
honour its largest bills, and meet your greatest drafts. 

Crowding every avenue under an alarm of impend- 
ing judgment, let this congregation, this whole city, 
every inhabitant of our land, the wide world, with 
death and hell close at their heels, make for the door 
of mercy ; each man in tones of agony crying, Oh, if 
there is mercy to spare, be it mine ! — I say, God were 
as happy as he is able to meet the wants of all ; and 
make good the promise, Whosoever cometh unto me I 
will in no wise cast out. You cannot come too many ; 
too often ; too urgent ; too needy ; too guilty ; and, 
I will add, you cannot come too soon. Come ! Roll 
all thy gult on the back, and weep thy sorrows out on 
the bosom of the Saviour. When I look to the height 
L.ofC. 



100 



THE UNCHANGEABLE WORD. 



of Ms love, lost above the stars of heaven ; to the 
depth of his consolation, descending lower than the 
pit ; to the kindness of his heart, fuller than the brim- 
ming ocean ; to the crown in his hand gemmed with 
stars ; when I see him afflicted in all our afflictions, 
and, while he leaves pearls to drop from royal crowns, 
and stars from shaking heavens, gathering his people's 
" tears in his bottle," may not I say with the great 
apostle, " My God shall supply all your wants out of 
the fullness of his glory in Jesus Christ ? " Cast all 
your cares — cares for yourself, and for yours — cares 
for this world and the next, cast them on him. He 
careth for you ! 

In a nobler passage, Isaiah tells us, how all flesh is 
grass, and all the goodliness thereof as the flower of the 
field. And does not every week, each passing day, 
and fleeting hour, illustrate that solemn truth ? Death 
lays his sharp scythe in among the grass ; and to his 
stride and sweeping arm it falls in long, broad swathes. 
I have seen the reapers in the harvest-field sit down on 
the fallen sheaves of corn to wipe the sweat from their 
sun-browned brows, and, pausing from work, rest 
awhile ; but who ever saw this grim reaper sitting on 
the tombstones or green hillocks of the grave, to rest 
himself and repair his strength ? Of Death it may be 
said, as of God, " He sleeps not, neither is weary." 
See how he advances on us — every day the nearer, as 
before an eye that expresses no pity, and an arm that 
is never weary, and a scythe that never blunts, fall the 
tallest grass and fairest flowers ! " All flesh is grass." 
A few years more and these sparkling eyes shall be 



THE UNCHANGEABLE WORD. 



101 



quenched in death ; a shroud around every form ; on 
every lip the seal of dusty death ; and all of us lying 
beneath the grassy sod, mouldering in the grave — 
saved or unsaved — the never-dying soul in heaven or 
in hell. We shall be gone ; but not gone with us, nor 
with the grass and summer flowers, the word of God. 
It abideth. Never shall it be said of it, " The place 
that now knows it shall know it no more.' 7 That 
word shall endure for ever. Blessed truth ! No such 
balsam for a wounded heart ; no such pillow for an 
aching head ; no such brand for a battle-day ; no such 
staff for manhood's hand, or crutch for tottering age. 
And what a sure anchor for the soul amid death's 
swelling waves, when storms are roaring on the shores 
of time, and wearying to be gone — crying, How long, 
Lord, how long, we wait the signal to cast loose our 
moorings, and enter the haven of eternal rest ; to 
learn in crowns and thrones, the smiles of the redeemed 
and the Well-done and welcome of the Eedeemer, 
that, " it is easier for heaven and earth to pass than 
for one tittle of the law to fail." 



11m Wmk 0I #0i 



u Novr th* God of peace, that brought again from the dead our Lord 
Jesus, that great Shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the 
everlasting covenant, make you perfect." — Heb. xiii. 20. 

One of the most noticeable features in religious re- 
vivals is, what I might call the new power of an old 
gospel. A commonplace preacher, gifted with no power 
to stir men's passions, and pouring forth no flood of 
eloquence to carry assemblies along as stones are roll- 
ed before a headlong torrent, appears in the pulpit. 
His manner is plain ; and he preaches nothing but the 
simplest gospel truths. Yet, as I have seen the tall 
reeds that fringe the margin of a lake all suddenly 
bend before a rising wind, so his hearers are affected. 
Without any apparent cause to account for the pheno- 
mena, there is, to use Ezekiel's figure, a shaking of the 
dry bones. Rough hands wipe tears from eyes unused 
to weep ; and not delicate women only, but strong men 
are visibly and powerfully moved ; sobs interrupt the 
speaker ; truths often heard before, but no more felt 
than hailstones rattling on a rock, now fall like a 
shower of arrows ; each time the bowstring sounds 
and a shaft flies, a sinner falls. Christ, as in the forty- 
fifth Psalm, appears as a mighty conqueror ; the place 

'102} 



THE WORK OF GOD. 



103 



of his feet is glorious ; and the scene forcibly recalls 
its words of prayer and prophecy, " Gird thy sword 
upon thy thigh, most mighty, with thy glory and thy 
majesty " — " Thine arrows are sharp in the heart of 
the king's enemies, whereby the people fall under thee." 
All are moved, and not a few converted. 

How explain this extraordinary event ? The key to 
it, perhaps, will be found in the fact that a small band 
of God's hidden ones have been, or are at that hour, 
on their knees at a throne of grace — wrestling with 
God, and pouring out their prayers for an outpouring 
of his Spirit. In such praying, more than in the elo- 
quence of preaching, lies a minister's power. Study 
brings a man to the pulpit, but it is prayer that brings 
God here. Thus Paul, who was above the praise of 
the people, and held himself independent alike of their 
applause and censure, saying, It is a small matter for 
me to be judged of man's judgment, he that judgeth 
me is God — did not feel himself to be above their 
prayers. Though he insisted on the right of preachers 
to a sufficient maintenance, he was much more anxious 
that the people should pray for them than that they 
should pay them. He could, and that the gospel might 
not be hindered, he did maintain himself without aid 
from his hearers, saying, These hands have ministered 
to my necessities ; he could dispense with their money, 
but not with their prayers. So here he affectionately 
entreats them, saying, " Pray for us." 

And now, recalling the scene by the shores of Tyre, 
where the mariners, as they heaved their anchor and 
unfurled their sails, saw him accompanied by the dis- 



104 



THE WORK OF GOD. 



ciples and a crowd of women and children, before em- 
barking, kneel down on the sand, and part with prayers 
— or a scene where a father, with his family gathered 
round his bed, and his form propped up on pillows, lifts 
his emaciated hands, and with labouring breath and 
looks of love, commends them, " lads " and all, to the 
angel of the covenant ; so the Apostle closes his epis- 
tle and his intercourse with the Hebrews. He had 
sought their prayers. He now gives them his own — 
saying, " The God of peace, that brought again from 
the dead our Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd of 
the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting cov- 
enant, make you perfect in every good work to do his 
will, working in you that which is well-pleasing in his 
sight, through Jesus Christ ; to whom be glory for 
ever and ever. Amen." 

I. Look at the aspect in which God is here presented. 
1. A God of peace. 

Were we hastily and rashly to form our opinion of 
the character of God from the aspects and condition 
of this world, we might come to a different conclusion. 
" God of peace ! " Where is peace ? Read the world's 
past history, or survey its present condition ! Has not 
every age been filled with wars ? and what soil, from 
the sands of Africa to Polar snows, has not been 
drenched with human blood? Yonder Red Indian 
savage, who, armed with tomahawk, and adorned with 
scalps, fills the forest with his war-whoop, or with muf- 
fled steps steals on the sleeping camp to murder the 
aged and drag the young to slavery, has had his conn 



THE WORK OF GOD. 



105 



terpart among civilized and Christian nations. Peace ! 
Notwithstanding all the boasted progress of science 
and arts, and even of the gospel, the world is now 
bristling with arms ; and hardly has the tocsin ceased 
in one country when it begins ringing in another. Save 
this sea-girt and happy isle, has not every land in 
Europe shaken, in our own day, to the tramp of armies ; 
and sounded to the roar of cannon ? And at this mo- 
ment, mingling with the hoarse roar of the Atlantic, 
we seem to hear the boom of guns borne across the 
deep, from shores where long-gathering vengeance for 
negro's wrongs at length is falling — teach me the les- 
son, " Yerily there is a God that judgeth in the earth." 

Failing to find peace among distracted nations, and 
imagining that she may have fled for an asylum to the 
fanes of religion, do we seek her in the house of God ? 
Alas ! It is a house divided against itself. The Church 
of Christ has been rent asunder into I know not how 
many factious divisions. " Set on fire of hell," the 
fire catching the bad passions of human nature, she has 
burst into fragments like an exploding shell. Disap- 
pointed of finding peace there, do we turn our steps to 
the domestic circle ? We seek her in the family, and 
follow the mourners from a father's grave to see them 
clinging to each other ; alas, we are startled by loud, 
discordant, angry voices — brothers and sisters are 
quarrelling over the spoil. One asylum on earth re- 
mains to which she may have fled. " No man ever yet 
hated his own flesh and, like a lonely bird, peace 
may be quietly nestling in each man's bosom. No. 
Till Christ bring to it the peace of God, bidding tbs 
5* 



106 



THE WORK OF GOD. 



waves and winds be still, man's heart is agitated by 
many violent passions. Burning with hatred, or de- 
voured by jealousy, or shaken with fears, or racked 
with remorse, or tortured by desires it feels but cannot 
satisfy, his bosom a nest of scorpions and " a cage of 
every unclean bird," the wicked man has no peace. 
He cannot ; for the wicked are like the troubled sea, 
which cannot rest. " There is no peace, saith my God, 
to the wicked." 

Unconverted man is at peace — neither with himself, 
nor with others, nor with God. Shall we therefore 
conclude from this view of the world that he who is at 
once its Maker and Monarch is not a God of peace ? 
Assuredly not. He had nothing to do with this miser- 
able condition of affairs j and is neither to be judged 
by it, nor blamed for it. In a fatal hour, sin was ad- 
mitted into our world ; and the ship that takes a Jonah 
aboard parts with peace. She has nothing to look for 
but thunders and lightnings, and storms and tempests. 
But let God have his way, only let his will be done in 
earth as it is done in heaven, and such a change were 
wrought on this world, as would recall the change that 
night saw on Galilee, when Jesus woke, and, rising in 
the boat, looked out on the tumbling sea, to say, " Peace, 
be still " — and in a moment there was a great calm , 
and the lake lay around them like a glassy mirror, re- 
flecting in its bosom the stars and peace of heaven. 
Let only this one commandment, " Love one one ano- 
ther as I have loved you," be instantly and universally 
operative, there uever were another cannon cast ; nor 
sword forged ; nor quarrel bred j nor blow struck ; 



THE WORK OF GOD. 



107 



nor man enslaved ; nor shore invaded ; nor use made 
of drum and trumpet but to sound the jubilee of uni- 
versal peace. Sin banished the peace which God has 
sent his Son to restore ; ?/nd when this world is won 
over to Christ, and the crowns of earth, like those of 
heaven, are laid at his feet, then shall God be known 
as the God, and our world shall become again the 
abode of peace. 
2. God has made peace. 

" Fury is not in me, saith the Lord." He has turned 
from the fierceness of his anger, and made peace be- 
tween himself and man by the blood of the cross ; but 
not " peace at any price " — at the expense of his honour, 
holiness, justice, law, or truth. No. God has not over- 
looked the guilt of sin ; he pardons, but does not palli 
ate it. 

Peace, as has often been done between man and man, 
may be established on a false basis. Take for example 
those States of America where brother now stands 
armed against brother. Before they were actually rent 
asunder, they might have established a peace on the 
foundations of iniquity. Had they given ear to preach- 
ers who perverted the word of God, and, regarding 
slavery as the white man's right, and not the black 
man's wrong, had they joined hand to hand to sacrifice 
the interests of humanity to those of commerce, and 
the eternal laws of God to those of political expedi- 
ency, they might have had peace instead of war. 
They might have cemented their union with the blood 
of slaves. But such a peace as that would have offered 
a complete contrast to the peace of the gospel. This 



108 



THE WORK OP GOD. 



preserves God's honor. Not " peace at any price," it 
is peace at such a price as satisfied the utmost demands 
of his law, and fully vindicated his holiness in the sight 
of the universe. For, see, by the cross where Jesus 
hung, mercy and truth are met together ; righteousness 
and peace are embracing each other ; and there the 
great God appears as just, " and also the justifier of all 
those who believe in Jesus." 

"Be justice done," said a noble heathen, "though 
heaven should fall ;" but little did he who uttered that 
great sentiment fancy at what expense justice might be 
done. Here a greater than heaven falls. God spares 
not his own Son ; and by that immense sacrifice estab- 
lishes such a peace between himself and our guilty 
world, that now all sin may be pardoned, and every 
sinner saved. Believing in Jesus, you are at peace 
with God — at peace with his justice ; at peace with 
his law ; at peace with your own conscience. You 
have no sins henceforth to answer for. You have no- 
thing to fear in the hour of death. You have nothing 
to dread at the day of judgment. Christ has paid 
your debt, and satisfied for your sins ; and, fully recon- 
ciled to you by the blood of his Son, a just and holy 
God has no quarrel with you now. Christ's dying 
legacy is, " peace I leave with you, my peace I give 
unto you ;" and richer with that than banks could make 
you, " let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be 
afraid." That righteousness should satisfy our con- 
science, which has satisfied our God. "Justified by 
faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesua 
Christ." 



THE WORK OF GOD. 



109 



II. He brought Christ from the dead. 

1. In one sense the glory of his resurrection belongs 
to Christ himself. 

Should we hear of a man sinking the first day under 
the attack of a fever that commonly takes ten or twen- 
ty days to run its course — well in the morning and a 
corpse at night, we should not be more astonished than 
Pilate was when told that Christ was dead. Like the 
earth that shook in terror at the crime, like the graves 
that opened to show the sheeted dead, like the sun that 
hid his face, refusing to look on the scene, this sudden 
death was contrary to the course of nature. Dead ! 
dead in a few hours where men take days to die ! dead, 
with the two thieves still alive, and writhing on the 
neighbouring crosses ! Notwithstanding his drooping 
head, and glazed eye, and still, motionless form, it 
seemed impossible ! Besides, when men are dying, 
they speak low, not loud. You must bend, as we have 
often done, over the pillow to catch the whisper of 
bloodless lips ; but that cry, " It is finished," which 
sounded loud and clear from the cross, was less like 
the low, faint voice of a dying victim, than the battle 
shout of a victor who has won the fight, and stands 
with the foe beneath his feet. Strange that Jesus 
should die so soon ! What if it were an attempt to 
escape the hands of justice ? To defeat that and make 
all sore, a soldier, raising a long spear, buries the shin- 
ing steel in his blessed side — to see it, on being with- 
drawn from 1 lie seat of life, followed by a gush of 
blood and water, the emblems of our redemption. 

Strange as it seemed, it is still possible to explair 



11C THE WORK OF GOD. 

our Lord's death by natural causes. The very perfec- 
tion of his nature made him, more than other men are, 
liable to injury ; just as the finer the mechanism, the 
more easily deranged the machine. Then think how 
the four and twenty hours were filled up that preceded 
his death — the parting with his disciples ; the pain of 
Judas' treachery ; the mysterious agony of the garden ; 
the exhaustion of the bloody sweat ; the long night 
filled with mockery, and insult, and suffering ; the 
trial ; the scourging ; the rude usage of a brutal sol- 
diery ; his sorrow for weeping women and a faint- 
ing mother. Suffering these, I can fancy our Lord's 
strength exhausted, and himself more than half dead 
ere he reached Mount Calvary ; as ready to die, as a 
vast stone that has had the subsoil washed away by 
summer rains and winter snows is to leave its base at 
the slightest touch, and roll down to the bottom of the 
hill. 

Yet our Lord's death, so strange in its suddenness, 
may be otherwise accounted for. It was in a peculiar 
sense his own act. In no case do we lay down our 
lives. Who dies a natural death has his life taken 
from him ; who commits suicide throws his away. 
But in dying, our Lord was like a man who says, 1 
have done my work, completed my task, and I will 
now go to rest — I have paid the debt, and I will now 
leave the prison — I have fought the battle and won it ; 
and I will now go home. The only thing else I have 
now to give, Jesus might say, is my life ; and there it 
is. Of my own will, by my own, free, spontaneous act, 
I lay it down. M your wretched tools and cruel tor- 



THE V ORE OF GOD. 



Ill 



tares, your crown of thorns and bloody cross, cannot 
deprive me of life. No. If I could create bread as 
fast as it was eaten, could not I create blood as fast as 
it flows away ? It is not you that take away my life 
nor is it God. It is not taken away — but given ; for 
I have power to lay it down, as I have power to take 
it up again. Hence our Lord's claim on our love and 
gratitude. He gave himself for us dying " the just for 
the unjust, that he might bring us to God." 

But he who said, " I have power to lay down my 
life," also said, " I have power to take it up again " — 
as he had before intimated, when the Jews having 
asked a sign of him, he said, referring to his body, 
" Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it 
up. Some men have a strange power of awaking from 
sleep whenever they please. They resolve to sleep 
three, or three times three hours ; and, as if a trumpet 
was blown at their ear, they wake at the time. True 
to a minute, they have hardly opened their eyes when 
the clock strikes the hour. More strange still, many 
have not only slept, but some have even swooned and 
come out of the trance at the very time they fixed on. 
Curious, and to a great extent inexplicable, as these 
cases are, we know that there is a spirit within the 
body, lodged in the brain, and lord of the house, to 
assert the supremacy of the mind over matter, and stir 
up the sleeping senses at the appointed hour. 

But fancy a man, ere he dies, settling the day and 
date of hi 3 resurrection ; and, greatest of miracles, as 
yon tomb has witnessed, raising himself! Here is 
that wonder of wonders 1 Bowing his head on the 



112 



THE WORK OF GOD. 



cross, Christ gives up the ghost. The body the women 
swathe is stiff ; cold the feet that Mary kisses ; fixed, 
and glassy, and filmy, the eyes his mother looks on, 
and bloody and mangled the form she receives in her 
arms as they lower it slowly and tenderly from the 
cross ; and for three days nothing distinguished this 
from other corpses, but that it assumes no sign of 
corruption. As perfumes give their odours to the 
vessel that holds them, it seems as if his pure soul 
had imparted somewhat of its virtues to his body ; 
for though dead it suffers no decay ; no smell of the 
charnel house fills that tomb ; his pale countenance, 
as if carved out of marble, is beautiful as ever. The 
grave sits by and looks on its captive, but does not 
dare to touch him ; and there he lies like a king asleep 
in a prison, the grimmest warder standing in rever- 
ence of one on whom the door is locked, to be thrown 
open at his bidding. At length the door is opened ; 
but none enter to wake the sleeper. The angel rolls 
away the stone and sits on it ; with eager eye watch- 
ing the great event. All yet is wrapped in gloom. 
Within and without is the deepest silence — no sound 
breaking the stillness but the distant footfall of the 
guards, that, panic struck, fly the celestial apparition. 
Suddenly the body stirs ; of his own accord the dead 
rises ; and, dropping the garments of death, Jesus 
steps forth on the dewy ground. He has broken the 
prison, bound the jailer, and spoiled him of his keys ; 
and Faith hears voices as of angels singing away up 
among the stars, " Death, where is thy sting ? and, 
Grave, where is thy victory ?" 



THE WORK OF GOD. 



113 



2. Here our Lord's resurrection is attributed to 
God. 

Here unquestionably ; but not here only For God 
is elsewhere represented as protecting the dead body 
of his Son. Standing between it and the greedy 
grave, he guards it as a mother would her child's 
from howling wolves ! — as Eizpah did her seven sons, 
hanging on one gibbet, from the birds of the air, and 
the beasts of the field. In words which were ad- 
dressed to God, and could only be applied to Christ, 
the Psalmist says, " Thou wilt not suffer thine Holy 
One to see corruption." But the Bible, which attri- 
butes the preservation of Christ's body to God, also 
attributes its resurrection to him. Paul says, "He 
hath raised up Jesus again ;" and to the day of his 
resurrection, as in some respects throwing his birth- 
day into the shade, the same apostle applies these 
words, " Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten 
thee," — as if he came from Joseph's tomb, more evid- 
ently and more gloriously God's begotten Son, than 
from the virgin's womb. From that womb he came, 
a feeble infant, to save the world ; but from this 
tomb he comes, a mighty conqueror, having saved it. 
There, with the angel spectators of the fight, he enters 
the fisld a combatant ; but here, with angels attend- 
ing his triumph, borne high on his shield, wearing the 
crown of resurrection, declared to be the Son of God 
with power, he ascends to his Father — the gates of 
heaven thrown open to the cry, " Lift up your heads, 
ye gates ; and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors ; 
that the King of glory may come in." 



114 



THE WORK OP GOD. 



His resurrection is thus the work of God ; the 
crown of his labours ; the token of his acceptance ; 
the fruit of his death. The God of peace raises him 
from the dead, not simply by his almighty power, but 
" through the blood of the everlasting covenant 
his own blood — as if the blood that washes away our 
sins, sprinkled on his dead face, restored him to life ; 
sprinkled on the chains of death, dissolved them ; 
sprinkled on the doors of the grave, threw them open ! 
Most precious and potent blood ! May it be sprinkled 
in red showers from God's hand on us ! If that blood, 
in a sense, gave life to a dead Christ, shall it not 
impart life to us? Yes. Through its power, dead 
with Mm to sin, crucified with him to the flesh, and 
buried with him in the baptism of the Holy Spirit, 
we rise to newness of life ; and at the last trumpet's 
call, set free from death as well as sin — bondmen no 
more — we shall rise from watery graves and dusty 
tombs to show corruption changed into incorruption, 
and mortal into immortality. Then shall death be 
swallowed up in victory. In conclusion — 

1. Look at this aspect of Christ as the Great Shep- 
herd of the sheep. 

How many are the elements of his greatness 1 He 
is a divine Shepherd. He is a royal Shepherd — with 
a crook in his hand, he wears a crown on his head ; 
and unlike other shepherds, who in the East dwell 
in tents, and here in the lowly cottages of lonely 
glens, his home is a palace, and his servants are the 
angels of heaven. Think on the number of teachers, 
preachers, pastors, ministers, who throughout all the 



THE WORK OF GOD. 



115 



countries and climes of earth, are feeding his flocks ; 
and how many are the shepherds he has under him. 
Indeed, those who bear the greatest names in his 
church are. though leaders, but part of the flock ; 
he himself being the only Shepherd, Bishop, and Over- 
seer of souls. He said, I have sheep that are not 
of this fold ; and think of the numbers of his flock 
scattered in all regions of the world ! When the 
last day gathers them together, and angels' hands 
have separated them from the goats, the earth has 
no plain spacious enough to hold that flock — the ran- 
somed multitude which no man can number. Well, 
therefore, may he be called the Great Shepherd, and 
for this reason, also, that the whole earth, from pole 
to pole and sea to sea, is his pasture-ground ! — " The 
world is his, and the fullness thereof." 

Nor here, as sometimes happens among men, is 
greatness separated from that goodness which is the 
best property of the two. We would rather be good 
than great. But both properties, infinite in measure, 
meet in Christ. Paul calls him the Great, but he calls 
himself the Good Shepherd. He says, " I am the Good 
Shepherd.''' How worthy of the title ! How tender 
he is to weak and feeble Christians ! He gathers the 
lambs in his arms and carries them in his bosom ; and 
gently leads those that are with yoimg. His sheep are 
not reared for the butcher's knife. They are not given 
over to hirelings ; but he, placing himself at their 
head, leads them forth to green pastures and by still 
waters. Making such full provision for his people 
that they can sing, " The Lord is my shepherd, I shall 



116 



THE WORK OP GOD. 



not want/' he sets such high value on his flock, that if 
even one should stray and be " ready to perish," ne 
seeks the wanderer till it is found. Home, if I may say 
so, has no delights for Jesus till he find the lost one ; and 
returns with it on his shoulders, to call on angels and 
saints to rejoice with him that the lost is found. The 
Good Shepherd, in these aspects of his character, Jesus 
is especially and emphatically so in this, that he laid 
down his life for the sheep. He made his soul an offer- 
ing for sin, suffering and dying for us ; and therefore 
the voice of God in that mysterious call, " Awake, O 
sword, against my shepherd, against the man that in 
my fellow ; and smite the shepherd." See there the 
sinless, well-beloved, eternal Son standing before his 
Father — heaven looking on in wondering silence. The 
sword of justice is unsheathed. Once before, when it 
emptied many a throne in heaven, the angels had seen 
it flash, and their fallen compeers, shrieking from its 
wounds, rush headlong down to hell, like the herd into 
the depths of Galilee. But now, the Father sheathes 
that glittering sword in the bosom of his Son. He 
falls ; he groans ; he dies — the just for the unjust. 
" He was wounded for our transgressions, and bruised 
for our iniquities ; the chastisement of our peace was 
upon him, and by his stripes we are healed." And 
gathering now in wonder, and sorrow, and awe, around 
the dead body of the shepherd, can we think of the 
dignity of the sufferer, and the greatness of the ran- 
som, of the pangs that rent his body, and of the sor- 
rows that rung his heart without exclaiming, — How 
great was thy mercy toward me ; how great should be 



THE WORK OF GOD, 



117 



my gratitude and love to thee ! " Thy love to me was 
wonderful, passing the love of women." 

2. Let us glance at Paul's prayer. 

" The God of peace that brought again from the 
dead our Lord Jesus Christ, that great shepherd of the 
sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant, 
make you perfect in every good work to do his will ; 
working in you that which is well pleasing in his sight, 
through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory for ever and 
ever, Amen. 77 Make you perfect! Could I express 
for you a better wish, or could you aim at a better ob- 
ject ? It is a high, but, thank God, not a hopeless aim. 
What though, when you would rise, you feel the world 
and the flesh binding you down as by chains of iron and 
affliction? No chains are too strong for him, who, 
bringing Jesus from the dead, burst the fetters of the 
tomb ? If God, in the person of his beloved Son, has 
set a man on the throne of the great universe — exalt- 
ing him high above angels and archangels, seraphim 
and cherubim, principalities and powers, is he not able 
to raise us to humbler thrones ? Is not that which he 
has done for our Surety a most sure and glorious 
pledge of what he shall do for his people ? Where the 
head is, all the members, the humblest of them, one day 
shall be. Even as the oil of frankincense and myrrh 
and cassia, which was poured on the high priest's head, 
descended in fragrant streams to the very skirts of his 
garments — the "parts that swept the dust, so shall the 
grace that was poured on Christ without measure, de- 
scend to sanctify and gladden the meanest of his 
people. Imbued with his Spirit, and sanctified by his 



118 



THE WORK OF GOD. 



grace, all who belong to him shall be at length and at 
last made meet for heaven ; and brought to it as cer- 
tainly as at the great exodus everything that pertained 
to Israel was brought out of Egypt ! " Not a hoof was 
left behind." 

I know that we are not perfect yet ; far from it ! 
In our imitation of Christ, how unlike is the fairest 
copy to the great original ! Still there is no ground 
for despair. Perfect freedom from the power of sin, 
perfect obedience to the precepts and spirit of the law, 
perfect harmony to the mind and perfect conformity to 
the image of God, are within the bond, sealed with 
blood ; and also in the prayer, " I will that those whom 
thou hast given me be with me where I am." Let not 
your souls, therefore, be cast down by past failures. 
Eise to renew your attempts, saying with David, " Why 
art thou cast down, my soul, and why is my spirit 
disquieted within me ? hope thou in God, for I shall 
yet praise him who is the health of my countenance, 
and my God." Yes. Hope in God ! Who loses hope, 
loses the battle. Let perfection always be your aim — 
nothing below it. Seeking strength from on high, rise 
from your knees to try it again, and again, and again ; 
and you will find that every true, earnest, prayerful 
effort raises you higher, and still higher, on the Eock of 
Ages. Let every day see some work done ; some bat- 
tle fought ; some victory won. Eise every morning to 
make a new start for heaven ; and let every sun that 
sets leave you a day's journey nearer it. Work on ; 
press on ; fight on. Do the best you can ! live the best 
you can ; get all the good you can ; do all the good 



THE WORK OF GOD. 



119 



you can ; do it at all times you can ; do it to all men 
you can ; do it in all the ways you can. And God 
working in you by his Spirit, both to will and to do of 
his good pleasure, you shall rise step by step, onward 
and upward, to perfection ; till, mounting as on eagle's 
wings, you arrive at the gates of glory, and in you a 
perfect heaven receives a perfect saint. 



" Behold the Lamb of God."— John i. 36. 

Born without taste, as others are without an ear for 
music, some have no sympathy with nature. In them, 
the earth " sown with orient pearl," bush and tree hung 
with sparkling diamonds, the snow-crowned hills, val- 
leys gaily robed in flowers and smiling in sunshine, the 
spacious sea, the star-spangled sky, breed no admira- 
tion ; and leave them as unable to appreciate the beau- 
ties of a lovely landscape, as the cattle that browse on 
its pastures. Yet there are scenes in nature that may 
disappoint one who has the keenest enjoyment in a 
beautiful landscape — the liveliest sympathy with what- 
ever is grand or lovely. Such a man travels far, and, 
climbing rugged crag, or steep mountain, toils hard 
that he may feast his eyes on some famous prospect. 
His expectations are raised to the highest pitch. At 
length, panting, exhausted, he arrives at the summit ; 
and at the cry of his guide, Behold ! looks round to 
be disappointed. It does not repay the trouble ; it 
was not worth the toil. Now, such disappointment 
awaits none who, responding to the call, Behold the 
Lamb of God, have turned their eyes on Christ. With 
a clear, unclouded view, the sight is ravishing. Hea- 

(120) 



THE LAMB OF GOD. 



121 



ven and earth, angels and men, to use Paul's words, 
are " perfectly joined together in the same mi ad and 
judgment ; " and Jesus, to quote the language of an 
old, holy song, is declared to be " the chiefest among 
ten thousand, and " — what none else are — " altogether 
lovely." 

Accustomed from childhood to see the starry host 
come forth, night by night, to march in silent grandeur 
above our heads, the scene attracts little attention ; 
many walking beneath that spangled dome, nor ever, 
the whole year through, turning a look of wonder on 
it. And thus also, in those who have been born and 
bred up by its shores, familiarity with the ocean, 
whether its waves sleep in summer sunshine or foam 
and rage in wintry tempests, breeds a measure of in- 
difference. 

But who, for the first time, has seen the Almighty's 
hand in the snowy Alps, or heard his voice in the thun- 
ders of Niagara, without dumb surprise ? Our emo- 
tions are strange, new, and inexpressible ; and we pro- 
nounce such sublime and surpassing grandeur to be 
beyond the power of words to describe ; of colours to 
paint ; of fancy to imagine. To appreciate, you must 
see them. And if the brightest colours of prose, or 
of poetry's glowing fancy, do no justice to such scenes, 
what words can set forth the graces and matchless 
merits of the Saviour ? Put an angel — a seraph in 
the pulpit ; and give him Christ for his theme ! The 
subject is greater than his powers ; the flight b<yond 
his wing ; the song above his compass. He were the 
first to say, when called to describe the glories and 
6 



122 



THE LAMB OF GOD. 



beauty, the majesty and mercy, that meet in Jesus, 
Who is sufficient for these things ? To appreciate 
him, you must see and know him. Yes. You might 
sit there, and listen all your life long to no other 
theme, you might hear every sermon that had been 
preached, you might read every hymn that had been 
sung, you might study every book that had been writ- 
ten about Christ, and after all, on arriving in heaven, 
you would stand before the throne to lift your hands 
in rapt, mute astonishment — on recovering speech, to 
exclaim with Sheba's queen, " I had heard of thee in 
mine own land, of thy acts, and of thy wisdom ; how- 
oeit the half was not told me. Happy are thy men ; 
happy thy servants " — and happy I to be allowed to 
take rank with them. 

Any view of Christ which the greatest preacher in 
the highest flight of genius ever set before his audience, 
must be feeble compared with the reality. Paint and 
canvas cannot give the hues of the rainbow, or the 
beams of the sun — unless by representations so poor as 
in many instances to excite contempt, and in all aston- 
ishment, that any artist could attempt what so far ex- 
ceeds the powers of cold, dull paint. No more can 
words describe the Saviour's glory. Nay, what is the 
most glowing and ecstatic view that the highest faith 
of a soul, hovering on the borders of another world, 
ever obtained of Christ, compared with the reality? 
It is like the sun changed by a frosty fog-bank into a 
dull, red, copper ball — shorn of the splendour that no 
mortal's eyes can look on. 

In directing your attention, therefore, to Jesu? 



THE LAMB OF GOD. 



123 



Christ, I do not pretend to do my subject justice ; but 
only attempt, with God's blessing, to do you some 
good oy directing your attention to one or two aspects 
of his life and character. By these, may the Holy 
Spirit of promise awaken faith in the unbelieving, and 
inflame the love of Christ's own, loving, chosen people. 

L Behold Christ before he came to this world. 

The measure of our Lord's humiliation is that of his 
original exaltation. Nor can we know how low he 
stooped to save us, till we know the height from whence 
he came. Came ? Did he not come of humble parent- 
age ; and was not his birth-place a stable ? That 
starting-point may satisfy those who have formed no 
higher idea of Jesus than as a man of rare perfections, 
the pattern and paragon of every human virtue. But 
we know better — see further into the " mystery of god- 
liness." God manifest in the flesh, he had a higher or- 
igin than Bethlehem. He was of a nobler descent 
than Mary ; and sprung of an older and more royal 
ancestry than Judah's kings. The lowly spring that 
wells up among the vineyards or green pastures of the 
Alpine valley, draws its waters from above — their 
source those inaccessible and eternal snows, whose spot- 
less bosom bears no stain, nor print of human foot. 
So was it with Jesus. 

To be sprung of humble parentage puts no shame on 
us. No man need blush for the mother that bore him, 
because, treacling life's lowly paths, she had to spin, or 
weave, or toil, to earn his bread. Who does so has 
cause to be ashamed, not of her, but of himself — his 



124 



THE LAMB OF GOD. 



prids meaner than her lot could be. Claiming the 

highest ancestry, our Lord was not ashamed of Mary. 
She was his mother ; and mother was a word as dear 
and sacred to him as to us. He honoured her ; he met 
her wish with miracles : he owned her on his cross ; 
true to nature, his dying look was turned on his moth- 
er ; and though family relationships do not subsist in 
heaven as here, there he will acknowledge her his 
mother. Not that Mary is, as Papists call her, the 
mother of God, or queen of heaven, to whom we are 
to address our prayers, and pay an inferior worship, 
that we may secure her influence with her son. Still, 
though shrinking from such profanity, with angels we 
pronounce her blessed. Honour be to Mary's mem- 
ory ! She was, and shall ever be, the mother of the 
man Christ Jesus — the man of the cross that redeemed 
the world ; the man on the throne who rules the uni- 
verse. " God hath highly exalted him, and given him 
a name which is above every name ; that at the name 
of Jesus every knee should bow of things in heaven, 
and things in earth, and things under the earth ; and 
that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is 
Lord to the glory of God the Father." 

But it is to an older and higher than this mediatorial 
throne to which he has been exalted, that we are to 
look, if we would discover the heights from whence 
Jesus came to save us. Unlike an earthly palace that 
holds but one king, the wide extent of heaven is 
crowded with thrones. They are filled by the saints ; 
among whom, if Christ's we shall take rank — kings 
and priests to God for ever. Amid these, though not 



THE LAMB OF GOD. 



125 



far removed, rises the throne of the Mediator — span- 
ned by a rainbow, and encircled by angel hosts, and 
occupied by him on whose glorious form all eyes are 
centered ; to whose praise all harps are tuned ; and at 
whose feet, once nailed to a cioss, thousands of glit- 
tering crowns are cast, as the purchase of his blood 
and the gift of his grace. There Jesus sits among his 
saints, King in an assembly of kings. But above all 
these, high and lifted up, in the unsealed heights of 
Godhead, casting the shadow of its glory over the 
boundless universe, rises the throne of the Ancient of 
days ; days that had no beginning, and years that 
shall have no end. Now, ere he assumed our nature, 
and descended on our world to save it, the Son of God 
was there — there before Mary bore him, or Mary her- 
self was born — there before Adam was made — there 
before there was sin, or death, or life — there before 
worlds had begun to roll, or time had begun to run — 
there before sun ever shone, or bright angels sang. 
Here now we are at the fountain-head ; if we can 
speak of having reached that, even on fancy's wing 
which stretches away into the boundless mysteries of 
eternity. Hear how our Lord speaks of himself, — 

" I was th' Almighty's chief delight 
From everlasting days, 
Ere yet his arm was stretched forth 
The heav'ns and earth to raise. 

" Before the sea began to flow, 
And leave the solid land, 
Before the hills and mountains rose, 
I dwelt at his right hand. 



126 



THE LAMB OP GOD. 



" "When first lie rear'd the arch of heaVn, 
And spread the clouds on air, 
When first the fountains of the deep 
He open'd, I was there. 

" There I was with him, when he stretch'd 
His compass o'er the deep, 
And charged the ocean's swelling waves 
Within their bounds to keep. 

" With joy I saw th' abode prepared 
Which men were soon to fill : 
Them from the first of days I loved, 
Unchanged, I love them still." 

There are dark depths of ocean where man never 
dropped his sounding line ; there are heights in the 
blue heavens where the air was never stirred by an 
eagle's wing ; and there are regions of truth which 
angels never explored — their eye never scanned, and 
their feet never trode. And such — the deepest of all 
doctrines, the profoundest of all mysteries, yet the 
strongest of all our confidences— is this, that He who 
expired for us on Calvary was, not as men and angels 
are, the created, but the Eternal Son of God. In this 
truth I see the love of God, brighter than a sun ; by 
this line I measure the love of Christ, deeper than the 
sea. It was this, that he was co-equal with the Fath- 
er, the brightness of his Father's glory, and the ex 
press image of his person ; that he was not less God 
than man ; that under the garment of humanity, so 
rudely rent, divinity stood concealed ; that the brow 
wounded by thorns, had worn the crown of heaven ; 
that the hand nailed to the tree, had held the scales of 
fate, and swayed the sceptre of the universe ; — it was 



THE LAMB OF GOD. 



127 



this that struck Paul with such astonishment, and 
called from his lips an expression that finds a ready 
echo in every believer's heart, " The breadth, and 
length, and depth, and height of the love of Christ, 
which passeth knowledge." 

II. Behold Christ on earth — in his humiliation. 

Follow him in his descent from heaven on his mis 
sion of mercy. What a descent ! Who has looked 
into a gulf so dark and profound ? Philosophers expa- 
tiate with wonder on the inconceivable distances of 
the fixed stars ; and we attempt in vain to fancy the 
space that stretches between our world and orbs so re- 
mote that, notwithstanding its speed, light takes six 
thousand years to perform its journey between some of 
them and us ; so that, marvellous to tell, the rays of 
light which we saw last night left the star about the 
time that man was made, or our world was shaken by 
the Fall. Still, that distance, though not to be con- 
ceived, may be measured. You can express it by num- 
bers ; but how immeasurable, as well as inconceivable, 
the distance between the throne of the Eternal and the 
stable of Bethlehem ; the bosom of God and the breast 
of Mary ! 

People are fond of tracing rivers from their mouths 
to their distant sources ; and Bruce, the traveller, pro- 
nounced it the proudest moment of his life, when he 
stood, as he fancied, at the lofty fountains of the Nile. 
But hen we trace the waters of life to their earthly 
source, how lowly the spring where they well up into 
light ! Would you see it ? Bow thy head ; enter this 



128 



THE LAMB OF GOD. 



stable ; and in this stall, whence beasts have been 
turned, out to accommodate a woman in her hour of 
sorrow, look into the manger ; gently raise the rough, 
swaddling cloth ; and there, in a feeble creature that, 
disturbed, sends up an infant's wail, Behold the Lamb 
of God — the Love of God — the Saviour of the world ! 

Look again ! When times were hard, and work was 
scarce, and men had to leave their homes to seek about 
for bread, did you ever meet a houseless family ; and see 
the mother, as they trudged along the wild moor, try- 
ing with scanty coverings to protect her infant from the 
pelting rain and storm ? In some such plight, Behold 
the Lamb of God ! The holy family are flying to Egypt. 
Mary has seized her child ; and, pressing it to her bosom, 
has rushed into the tempest, and the dark night, and 
on untravelled paths, to save its infant life from the 
massacre of Bethlehem — the bloody sword of Herod ! 

Look again ! On some stormy night, when the wind 
howled in the chimney, and the rain beat on the win 
dow, and the wild beast was driven back to his lair 
and mothers that had boys at sea, trembling for their 
fate, betook themselves to prayer, did you ever, hastily 
summoned to the bed of the dying, pass some outcast 
crouching in the shelter of a doorway, or lying with 
weary head pillowed on a cold, stone step ? Whatever 
you may have felt, Jesus, up in heaven, had a fellow- 
feeling for that houseless man. Lord of Glory ! he had 
been s/ich an outcast ; an outcast from human kindness 
— every door he sought, shut in his face. What man 
ever uttered a more touching plaint than his : " The 
tbxes have holes, the birds of the air have nests, but 



THE LAMB 01 GOD. 



129 



the Son of man hath, not where to lay his head?" 
Stretched on the cold ground, no roof to shelter him, 
his locks wet with the dews of night, Behold the Lamb 
of God — an outcast from man, that you might cease to 
be outcast from God ! Herein is love indeed. 

These sorrows were but the muttering thunder, the 
first big drops that precede the bursting of the storm. 
It came roaring on ; and would you behold the Lamb 
of God in the great suffering and work of sacrifice, 
look here ! Pass into this garden : draw near with 
reverent step. Praying in an agony, sweating great 
drops of blood, prostrate on the ground, " see thy lover 
lowly laid, and hear the groans that rend his breast." 
Follow the prisoner to the judgment-hall : blood streaks 
his face, trickling from a crown of thorns — the wreath 
our sins wove for his royal brow, and " the crown with 
which his mother crowned him in the day of his espou- 
sals." Go out with him to the crowded street ; he 
faints ; louder now the wail of women, deeper now the 
curses of cruel men, as, disfigured with blood and dust, 
his blessed head lies on the hard stones — yet not so 
hard as pitiless hearts. With the procession, pass on 
to Calvary. They cast him roughly on the ground ; 
they nail his quivering limbs to the tree ; and now it 
rises slowly over the surging crowd that rend the as- 
~onished air with shouts and savage yells of triumph. 
<Jow, Behold the Lamb of God ! see the blood of re- 
demption streaming ; see the cloud of desertion deep* 
ening ; see the tide of life departing as the glaze 
gathers on his eyes, and the sword in a Father's hand 
is passed deeper and deeper into his heart ! Heark to 
6* 



130 THE LAMB OF GOD. 

to the awful cry that rises, loud and clear, in the still- 
ness of the darkness, " Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani !" 
!t My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me ?" 

Death has done his work ; and when kind hands 
have taken down the body, and borne it slowly to the 
tomb, look there ! You have looked on the face of the 
dead, but never on one that loved you half so well. 
You have kissed brows as icy cold, but death never 
stilled a heart so warm and true to you. No lips ever 
prayed for you like these ; nor hand ever wrought foi 
you like that from which the women wipe the clotted 
olood ; nor eyes ever wept for you like those their fin- 
gers gently, tenderly, close amid a flood of tears. Be- 
hold the Lamb of God, slain for your sins ! Mary 
bends over the dear body ; kisses the cold feet ; washes 
the bloody wounds ; and spreads out a bed of spices. 
Well she may ! He had been a kind Lord to her ; but 
not kinder than he will prove to any, to all who kneel 
with that blessed woman at his feet — weeping, longing, 
loving suppliants for saving mercy. Behold, and be- 
lieve ! Herein is love indeed ; not that we loved him, 
but that he loved us, and gave himself for us ; suffer- 
ing for sins — the just for the unjust, that he might 
oring us to God. 

[II. Let this Lamb of God be the supreme object of 
our desires, and the sole object of our faith. Be 
this oir language : — 

" Jesus, my Lord ! I know his name, 
His name is all my boast ; 
Nor will he put my soul to shame, 
Not let my hope be lost." 



THE LAMB OF GOD. 



131 



To a sinner's ear there is no music on earth, nor in 
the golden harps of heaven, like the name of Jesns. 
Music in its sound, there is ointment in its meaning. 
Fragrant as the spikenard of the alabaster box, " his 
name is as ointment poured forth." If but his name 
be such a blessed thing, what must the sight of him 
be ? To see Jesus clearly with the eye of faith, is to 
see the deep opening a way from Egypt's to freedom's 
shore ; is to see the water gush, full and sparkling from 
the desert rock ; is to see the serpent gleaming on its 
pole over a dying camp ; is to see the life-boat coming 
when our bark is thumping on the bank, or ground on 
rocks by foaming breakers ; is to see a pardon when 
the noose is round our neck and our foot is on the 
drop. No sight in the wide world like Jesus Christ, 
with forgiveness on his lips, and a crown in his blessed 
hand ! This is worth laboring for ; praying for ; liv- 
ing for ; suffering for ; dying for. You remember 
how the prophet's servant climbed the steeps of Car- 
mel. Three years, and never cloud had dappled the 
burning sky — three long years, and never a dewdrop 
had glistened on the grass, or wet the lips of a dying 
flower ; but the cloud came at last. No bigger than a 
man's hand, it rose from the sea ; it spread ; and as he 
saw the first lightnings flash, and heard the first thun- 
ders roll, how did he forget all his toils ! and would 
have climbed the hill, not seven, but seventy times 
seven times, to hail that welcome sight ! 

It is so with sinners so soon as their eyes are glad- 
dened with a believing sight of Christ ; when they 
have got Christ ; and with him peace. Be it that you 



132 



THE LAMB OF GOD. 



have to climb the hill of prayer, not seven, but seven 
thousand times, such a sight shall more than reward all 
your toil. Pray on ; for it is not on their feet, but on 
their knees that men climb to heaven. What though, 
like good old Simeon, we have to wait for " consola- 
tion " till our eye is dim and our hair is grey ?~— a sight 
of Jesus lights up the dull eye, and warms up the cold 
blood of age. Are there any who have been long look- 
ing, waiting, praying ; and yet cannot say with any 
confidence that they have found the Lord ? Let them 
draw comfort from the case of him who waited in the 
temple for the " consolation of Israel " till his eyes grew 
dim, and his head turned white with age. Be assured 
that your prayers are not forgotten! They are in 
God's books ; and your tears are in his bottle. The 
vision may tarry, but come it will. The Saviour will 
come ; hope will come ; peace at length will come ; the 
happy day shall come when, as Simeon took the babe 
in his aged arms to kiss it, and blessing, worshipping, 
rejoiced over it, thou also shall throw thy arms around 
thy Saviour, to exclaim, " Jesus, thou art all my salva- 
tion and all my desire — whom have I in heaven but 
thee ? there is none on all the earth whom I desire be- 
sides thee." 

Holy Spirit, so reveal the Lamb of God to us that 
we shall long to be with him ; and cry, like exiles on this 
earth, Oh to be where Jesus is ! Not impatient, yet 
finding little to detain us here, may the old man's wish 
hang on our lips : Lord, now lettest thou thy servant 
depart in peace ; for mine eyes have seen thy salvation. 
When the sand burned their feet, and the hot sun scorch 



THE LAMB OF GOD. 



133 



ed their heads, and the desert's howling waste lay all 
around them, how did they, who saw the purple clus- 
ters of Eshcol, long to be where the vine- trees grew ! 
And see, so soon as Simeon has the babe in his arms, 
how he wearies to leave the earth and ascend to hea- 
ven! Till his eyes were gladdened with a sight of 
Jesus, perhaps he was afraid of death, and with his old 
palsied hands clung to the world ; afraid to let go and 
drop. But with the infar t Saviour in his arms — and 
on a man in whom Christ is the hope of glory, what a 
change ! In our Saviour's presence Death lowers his 
colours ; grounds his arms ; drops his dart. As Jesus 
puts on his crown, Death puts off his ; as Jesus stands 
arrayed in his glories, Dea th stands disrobed of his ter- 
rors, so that a saint, sometimes transported with the 
view, feels as if he could spurn the earth, and soar to 
heaven on eagle's wings— his opinion Paul's. " To be 
absent from the body, and pi^esent with the Lord, is fa 
better." 



Mht govt. »t €>k%M. 

" Thy love to me was wonderful." — 2 Samuel i. 26. 

These words form a part of the most touching and 
beautiful eulogium which the profoundest grief and the 
finest genius ever uttered. On reading it, one is left 
in doubt of which art David was the greatest master ; 
whether it was in the use of the pen, the harp, or the 
sword. Jonathan found in him one worthy to preserve 
his memory, and record his remarkable virtues ; and 
David's genius has preserved these like fragrant spike- 
nard in a box of alabaster, or, as I have seen, a drop 
of water shrined within the crystal of a precious 
stone. 

It is due to the Psalmist to remark that this noble 
panegyric does no less honour to his heart than to his 
head. Remember that the death of Saul has removed 
the only obstacle that stood between David and the 
throne, and had rid him of an enemy who had pursued 
him for some years with rancorous and unrelenting 
natred. It is a common and a just saying that we should 
say no ill of the dead. They are not here to defend 
themselves ; and, unless where great interests are con- 
cerned, their ashes should not be disturbed. In his 
circumstances the utmost required of David would 

(134) 



THE LO YE OF CHEIST. 



135 



have been to preserve a decent and becoming silence 
about Saul, burying all recollections of him in the 
grave. But he was incapable of this ; he was cast in 
a finer mould ; he was made of nobler metal. His gen- 
erous heart, forgiving and forgetting every wrong, 
warmed at the recollection of those early, happy days, 
when the king drew the shepherd boy from obscurity, 
received him into the bosom of his family, showered 
royal favours on his head ; and when, harp in hand, he 
threw the chains of music over Saul's stormy passions, 
bidding the waves be still. David has buried Saul's 
faults in the grave, " earth to earth, dust to dust, ashes 
to ashes. ;; But ^hile he leaves the dross to lie undis- 
turbed among the cold embers, he brings out the gold 
— the finer elements of Saul's character ; and without, 
after the fashion of many lying tombstones, imputing 
to him virtues which he never possessed, he tells all the 
good of Saul he can, and crowns his memory with the 
honours due to a king, a dutiful son, a kind-hearted 
father, and a man as brave as ever faced a foe. " From 
the blood of the slain," he sings, " from the fat of the 
mighty, the bow of Jonathan turned not back, and the 
sword of Saul returned not empty. Saul and Jonathan 
were lovely in their lives, and in their death they were 
not divided. They were swifter than eagles, they 
were stronger than lions." 

But Jonathan is the grand subject of this beautiful 
lament ; the principal figure in the canvas. As in the 
case of others who have been the parents of distin- 
guished children, the father here owes much of his 
celebrity to the son. Many a son has had a better 



136 THE LOVE OF CHRIST. 

father, but what father ever had such a son ! In some 
respects, at least, Jonathan stands without a rival in 
all history, sacred or profane. Had we known him 
better, no doubt we might have thought less of him, 
we would have found some faults in him, and that 
it was true of him as of the best of fallen men, that 
the brightest sun is dimmed by spots. Yet there is no 
fault recorded of Jonathan ; and, conferring on him 
more honour than on any one else whose name stands 
in this sacred book, God has not left a stain to blot 
his memory. If there ever was friendship in this 
world, pure, unalloyed by any inferior metal, disinter- 
ested, free of envy, without any element of selfishness, 
incapable of harbouring a suspicious thought, and inca- 
pable of rejoicing in another's gain, even to his own 
loss, it had glowed in the bosom that now lay cold on 
Gilboa's mountains. Battle spear never pierced such 
a generous heart ; nor had war ever such a graceful 
victim offered at her blood-stained shrine. Men never 
possessed a friend such as David lost in Jonathan ; for 
he stood in his love as much above the common crowd 
of men, as his father did in stature— towering head 
and shoulders high above the assembled tribes of 
Israel. If ever man loved his neighbour as he did 
himself, that man was Jonathan ; and none with a 
head and heart can read his tragic history without 
feeling that he was worthy of this extraordinary, but 
not extravagant, laudation, " Thy love to me was won- 
derful." 

Jonathan rests in honour. Let him rest. A greater 
than Jonathan is here. Yet let us not forget the 



THE LOVE OF CHRIST. 



137 



honour dua to the grace of God which purified, ex- 
alted, sanctified his fine natural temper ; bringing out 
its excellencies as the art of the polisher does the 
beautiful veins that lie concealed in the rough plank, 
or the colours that flash and glow in some prec.ous 
stone. He was content that David should supplant 
him. God had so determined ; " even so Lord, for 
so it seemeth good in thy sight." And I cannot be- 
lieve that anything but a gracious resignation to the 
divine will could have welded his heart to David's 
under such irritating, trying, circumstances. Silent 
as Scripture is on Jonathan's religious character, in 
the story of this matchless, and more than romantic 
friendship, I see the heavenly fruit of piety. Peace 
be to his ashes, and honour to his memory ! We turn 
to a nobler subject ; and although I think I would 
not pluck a leaf from his laurels, I cannot, nor could 
any one else, read the words of my text without think- 
ing of a greater than Jonathan. 

As we muse on these words, Gilboa vanishes, and 
Calvary rises to view. The battle scene, with Jona- 
than standing like a lion at bay, or, faint from loss 
of blood, sinking beneath his wounds, shifts ; and I 
see Jesus standing alone amid the impious crowd, 
or fainting beneath his cross in the streets of Jeru- 
salem. The hill where, in the pale moonlight, all 
stiff and stark and bloody, Jonathan lies surrounded 
by heaps of dead, his face to heaven and his foot 
to the foe that have fallen before his arm, gives 
place to another scene. A tall cross tops the sum- 
mit of Mount Cavalry ; and the sun s level beams 



138 



THE LOVE OF CHRIST. 



shine on the drooping head and mangled, bloody form 
of the Son of God. To him these words best belong. 
We hang the harp of David on that cross ; and, 
Jonathan himself consenting, we take this garland 
from his brows, to weave it into the crown of thorns 
—saying, as we turn to Jesus, " thy love to me was 
wonderful." 

I. The love of Christ to us is wonderful, because 
there was nothing in us lovely. 

In the spangled sky, the rainbow, the woodland 
hung with diamonds, the sward sown with pearly dew 
the rosy dawn, the golden clouds of even, the purple 
mountains, the hoary rock, the blue boundless main, 
Nature's simplest flower, or some fair form of laugh- 
ing child or lovely maiden, we cannot see the beau- 
tiful without admiring it. That is one law of our 
nature. Another is, that so far as earthly objects are 
concerned, and apart from the beauty of holiness, we 
cannot help loving what is lovely, and regarding it 
with affection. Our affections are drawn to an at- 
tractive object as naturally as iron is charmed by a 
loadstone. God made us to love ; and when brought 
near to such an object our feelings entwine themselves 
around it, as the soft and pliant tendrils of the vine do 
around the support it clothes with leaves, and hangs 
with purple clusters. Such analogy is there between 
the laws of mind and matter ! 

Without detracting from Jonathan's merits, it must 
be owned, that however wonderful the love was which 
Ue bestowed on David, it was not bestowed on an un- 



THE LOVE OP CHRIST. 



139 



worthy object. One brave man loves another. In 
the old days of chivalry, men honoured courage in 
their enemies ; loving and admiring bravery even 
when in arms against them. And that gallant man, 
who, leaving the camp alone, with no attendant but 
his armour-bearer, scaled the dizzy crag, and threw 
himself single-handed into the garrison of the Philis- 
tines, found an object worthy of his affection in the 
youth, who, armed only with a sling and stone, went 
forth to defy the giant. And when that shepherd 
lad stood before Saul with the grim, dripping head of 
Goliath in his hand, and with modesty, like a foil, 
setting off his merit, told the story of the fight, no 
wonder to me that it is said that the " soul of Jona- 
than was kind to the soul of David, and Jonathan 
loved him as his own soul." They had much in com- 
mon. In warlike achievements, in strong affections, 
in generosity of temper, in genuine piety, in courage 
that dared everything, and was daunted by nothing, 
these brothers in arms answered to each other as 
" face answereth in a glass to face and as I have 
seen two bright drops of quicksilver when brought to 
touch each other, run into one, so from that day for- 
ward, Jonathan and David were united. 

We turn now from them to Jesus and ourselves ; 
and what do we find in man to win the love of Cal- 
vary ? The day that saw Jonathan's soul knit to 
David's, saw David in arms fighting Jonathan's battle, 
and saving his father's crown. We were in arms too, 
but they were turned against Christ's rights, and his 
Father's throne ; we were fighting too, but it was on 



140 



THE LOVE OF CHEIS1. 



the wrong side — rebels against God in the ranks of 
the devil. It is not enough to say that there was 
nothing lovely in us ; that, as a holy God, God saw 
nothing in us to love. Sin, that abominable thing 
which he hates, the seed and germ of all evils, a thing 
so hateful that it is said, " he cannot look " on it, had 
so pervaded the nature of every individual man, and 
the whole race of men, that, it necessitated God to 
abhor his own creatures. Do not start at the expres- 
sion. I use no language stronger than I can justify. 
Look at a corpse ! putrid, bloated, infecting all the 
air ; every feature of humanity shockingly defaced ; 
the bright eye ; the damask cheek ; the sweet lips ; 
the lovely form changed into vilest loathesomeness ; a 
banquet to worms which, as they creep out and creep 
in, give a horrible life to death ! Were the dearest, 
fondest object of our affections reduced to a state like 
that, how would we throw it, shuddering, from our em- 
braces ; regard it with the utmost horror ; and turn- 
ing away our eyes, call in pity for a grave to bury om 
dead. This may teach us how sin makes those whom 
God once loved with divine affection abhorrent in his 
sight. Nor any wonder that a God so holy, that " even 
the heavens are not clean in his sight," and that he 
" charges his angels with folly," should abhor man I 
Why, so soon as man sees himself aright, so soon as, 
with eyes illuminated by the Holy Spirit, he sees his 
own heart with all its corupt passions, and his life 
with its many vile and hateful sins, he abhors himself. 
Does he not ? Listen to one whose words will find an 
echo in every converted heart — " I have heard of thee 



THE LO YE OF CHRIST. 



141 



with, the hearing of the ear, but now mine eye seelh thee, 
wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes." 

Historians relate how, with all her baseness, her 
duplicity, her cruelty, her bloody bigotry, the passions 
and crimes that have left an indelible stain on her 
memory, Queen Mary had much queenly grace. So 
perfect was her form, her face so beautiful, her smile 
so winning, that it was only men cast in the stern 
mould of Knox that could resist their witchery. And 
to advert to better attractions than the beauty which 
is consumed before the moth, I have seen some who, 
with not a little calculated to repel, possessed in moral 
and mental excellencies, some lovable compensating, 
and redeeming properties. But, in the sight of G-od's 
infinite and unspotted holiness, sin left us none. 
Nor was there anything at all but human misery to 
draw down divine mercy. Sin left nothing in man 
which it did not touch ; and, like blow-flies, whatever 
it touched, it tainted. The whole man was affected — 
head and heart, soul and body, the reason and affec- 
tions, the imagination and the will. The deadly ven- 
om of the serpent's fang, like a subtile poison thrown 
into the circulation, was borne throughout all the 
frame. And hence the humbling, graphic words of the 
prophet, The whole head is sick, and the whole heart 
faint, from the sole of the foot even unto the head, 
there is no soundness in it, but wounds, and bruises, 
and putrefying sores. If it be true of all mankind 
that they are altogether become filthy ; true that 
there is none that doeth good, no, not one ; true that 
u every imagination of man's heart is evil continually f 



142 



THE LOVE OF CHRIST. 



true that we may all adopt the words of the Apostle, 
and say, I know that in me, that is in my flesh, there 
dwelleth no good thing, — then sin left us with nothing 
to engage, but everything to repel, the affections of a 
holy Saviour. Salvation, therefore, must be all grace ; 
and a Saviour's love must have its meetest and majes- 
tic emblem in the sun of heaven. Sustained in the 
sky by no pillars that rest on earth, it hangs on noth- 
ing ; and its bright beams, unlike the stone, the drop- 
ping rain, the blazing, dying meteor, that fall to the 
earth in virtue of its attraction, are sent forth by a 
power within itself. So with love divine ; the healing 
beams of the Sun of righteousness. Salvation is all 
of mercy, and not at all of merit. " By his mercy he 
saves us f and in embracing not the lovely but the 
loathsome, well may we transfer this eulogium to the 
love of Jesus, " thy love to me was wonderful ! w 

II. The love of Christ to us is wonderful, because 
there was nothing in us loving. 

We love what loves us. Such is the law of our 
nature ; and love comes in time to see its own face 
reflected in the heart of another, as in water at the 
bottom of a draw-well. We cannot resist loving what 
loves us ; it matters not who or what it is ; though but 
the dog that barks, and bounds, and wheels in joyous 
circles around us on our return — " the first to welcome 
and foremost to defend." I would hold his friendship 
cheap who did not love a dog that loved him ; and 
care little for the child that would not drop some tears 
on the grave of his humble but faithful playmate— or 



THE LO YE OF CHRIST. 



143 



to borrow a figure from Bible story, of the " little ewe 
lamb which the poor man nourished, which ate of hia 
own meat, and drank of his own cup, and lay in his 
bosom, and was to him as a little daughter." Let a 
poor dumb creature love us, we are drawn to love i t in 
return, by a law of nature as irresistible and divine as 
that which draws a stone to the ground, or makes the 
stream flow onward to the sea. 

Whatever secrets this key unlocks ; whatever strange 
and singular marriages it may explain, it does not open 
the mysteries of Calvary ; it does not explain the love 
of Christ. I have, indeed, seen some that had aban- 
doned themselves to a life of vice who still respected 
virtue, and looked back with remorseful regret to their 
days of childhood and the innocence of a father's home. 
I have seen a profligate son, who, though ringing a pious 
mother's heart, and bringing her grey hairs with sorrow 
to the grave, yet love her ; mourning his own failings 
he returned her affection ; yielding to sin, still he clung 
to his mother as a drowning wretch to a piece of the 
wreck which he hopes may float him to the shore. 
Now, if our love of goodness had survived the loss of 
it ; if we had retained any love to God after we had 
lost his image ; if we had cast back some lingering 
looks on Eden ; and, like Absalom, who felt pained at 
being two whole years in Jerusalem without being ad- 
mitted into his father's presence, if we had been 
grieved at God's displeasure, then, with such goodly 
vestiges of primeval innocence, Christ's love to us 
would not have been so wonderful. But there were no 
bach f Belings in man to awaken the love of Christ. 



144 



THE LOVE OF CHRIST. 



Hateful, man is by nature hating. I appeal to the un- 
converted. Do not your hearts prove that ? and how 
do those who have been converted, see it in the mem- 
ory of those days on which they now look back with 
horror — wondering how, when they were in arms 
against G-od, trampling on his laws, despising his 
mercy, scorning his grace, he should have borne with 
them as he did. Then, how plainly is that written 
also in the Bible, in such sentences as these, The car- 
nal mind is enmity against God ; — Herein is love in- 
deed, not that we loved God, but that he loved us ; — 
God commendeth his love to us in that while we were 
sinners Christ died for us. And what is graven deep 
on our hearts, and written so legibly on the pages of 
the Bible, I see in still more affecting characters on 
the body of him who sits throned in heaven. More 
than wounded for our transgressions, he was wounded 
by the hands of the transgressors. The nail-prints on 
the hands that our Advocate holds up in prayer, and 
that deep scar on his side, were not the work of dev- 
ils. To the question, What are these wounds in thine 
hands and thy side ? how truly may he answer, These 
are the wounds with which I was wounded in the house 
of my friends ! Inflicted by the hands of men, the 
marks of a love that, throwing its arms around ene- 
mies, embraced the unloving as well as the unlovely, 
hatred as well as loathsomeness, let the shining throng 
that stand before him with crowns of glory, and in the 
white robes of victors, join the church on earth, and 
weave these words into the anthems of the skies, Thy 
love to us was wonderful ! 



THE LOVE OF CHRIST. 



145 



III. This lore is wonderful in its expression. 

" Art thou in health my brother ? " So Joab saluted 
Amasa, as he took him by the beard to kiss him : and 
the last word had not left his lips when he stabbed 
him to the heart. Smiting him under the fifth rib, he 
passed on. Not so the people that followed Joab to 
battle. As they came up. the sight arrested their 
steps ; and they stood in gathering crowds — gazing 
with surprise and horror on Amasa as, victim of the 
basest cruelty, he wallowed in blood on the highway. 
Any dead body lying on the street would gather a 
crowd around it : and stay alike the steps of men on 
business, of the gay, of stooping age and tottering 
childhood. Exclamations of pity, of surprise, of hor- 
ror, would burst from all lips ; while the questions 
passed from person to person. How did it happen ? 
Who is he ? Where did he live ? Who are his 
friends ? And how would it move us. move the rough- 
est men, to see some trembling, bent, grey old man, or 
a distracted mother, rush through the throng, and fling 
themselves on the body with a shriek, a wild, piercing 
cry. Oh my son ! my beloved son ! Would God I had 
died for thee, my son. my son ! 

That stays the foot of man. But a sight is here that 
might have stayed an angel's wing : and filled both 
heaven and earth with wonder. Who is this ? Hear, 
heavens, and be astonished, earth ! By the cross 
where he dies, the ear of faith catches the voice of the 
eternal : " This is my beloved Son ! " He there, who 
is buffeted by cruel hands, and meekly bears the blows ; 
who faints from loss of blood and sinks beneath his 
7 



146 



THE LOVE OF CHRIST. 



cross ; who hangs upon the tree, while the blood 
streams from his hands and feet ; whose dying ear is 
filled, not with holy prayers and psalms, but with the 
shouts and mockery of an impious crew ; he, hanging 
mangled and lifeless on the middle cross, with head 
dropped on his breast, the. pallor of death spread over 
his cheek, the seal of death on his lips, the film of 
death on his eyes, is the Son of God. The Prince of 
life has become the prey of death ; at once its noblest 
victim and its almighty conqueror. 

How did it happen ? One word conveys the answer 
— that word is Love ; love to sinners, to the greatest, 
guiltiest sinners. Love brought him from the skies ; 
love shut him up in Mary's womb ; love shut him up in 
Joseph's tomb ; love wove the cords that bound his 
hands ; love forged the nails that fastened him to the 
tree ; love wept in his tears, breathed in his sighs, 
spake in his groans, flowed in his blood, and died upon 
his cross. It is impossible to think who he was, and 
we were, what and for whom he suffered ; to stand be- 
side that cross, with its noble, bleeding, dying, divine 
burden, and not address that dear, sacred body, saying, 
Thy love to me, to me a poor sinner, an ill-doing, and 
hell-deserving sinner, a guilty and graceless, a hateful 
and hating sinner, was wonderful — passing the love of 
women ; passing the loves of angels ; passing any 
tongue to tell ; passing figures to illustrate or fancy 
to imagine, thought to measure or eternity itself to 
praise. 

It was and it is still a common custom in the East 
for one man to express his friendship to another by 



THE LOVE OP CHRIST. 



147 



presenting him with rich and costly vestments — by 
taking his own robe and putting it on him. I saw it 
related how the present Emperor of France, having 
marked the dauntless bravery of a soldier in the very 
thick and whirlwind of the fight, took his own Cross 
of the Legion of Honour, and, in the enthusiasm of 
his admiration, fixed it on the brave man's breast. In 
harmony with such customs, the Scriptures tell us that 
Jonathan stripped himself of the robe that was on 
him, and gave it to David, and " his garments, even to 
his sword, and to his bow, and to his girdle." 

And when that shepherd lad, having doffed his 
homely attire, now stands before the court, and camp, 
and king, appareled as a prince, we have a faint image 
of what Jesus does for us. Son of God, he denuded 
himself of his visible glory, and, as it were, exchanged 
vestments with us. Taking not only our nature but 
our guilt upon him, he put on our shame, that he might 
apparel us in his glory. What an exchange! Our 
sins are imputed to him, while his righteousness is im- 
puted to us ; and thus, with a crown of thorns he pur- 
chases us an immortal crown, and ascends the cross, that 
we might ascend to the skies. Behold how he loved 
as ! 

In illustration also of the love of Jonathan, we are 
told that he said to David, " Whatsoever thy soul de- 
sir eth I will do it for thee :" The very language which 
Jesus addressed to his people ! He cannot withhold 
anything from those to whom he has given himself. 
How can he ? It were unreasonable to believe it. If 
he never said to any of the sons of men, Seek ye my 



148 



THE LOVE OF CHRIST. 



face iii vain, far less will he hold such language to 
those whom he purchased with his blood, and has en- 
shrined in his heart of hearts. Nor has he promised 
what he wants either the will or the ability to do. 
Jonathan's was a large and loving-hearted promise, 
but alas ! the day came when the heart that loved and 
the hand that would have helped David were cold in 
death. "Thy love to me was wonderful." Bitter 
thought ! it was a thing in the past, a sacred memory : 
no more ! The arrows of the Philistine had drunk up 
that love. The iron mace of war had shattered this 
sweet fountain. It lay empty and dry. The ear into 
which David once poured his sorrows was heavy in 
death. The heart that loved him had ceased to beat. 
Jonathan was gone — dead and gone ; and all left was 
the memory of joys never, never to return. He should 
see his face no more : and so, he flung himself on his 
bloody grave, crying, " I am distressed for thee, my 
brother Jonathan ; the beauty of Israel is slain on his 
high places. Thy love to me was wonderful, passing 
the love of women I" 

How much happier the circumstances of a lover of 
Jesus 1 He is no broken cistern ; but a fountain ever 
full and overflowing. His name is, " I am he that liv- 
eth and was dead." The angel guards an empty tomb ; 
and dries up the women's tears, saying, He is not here ; 
he is risen. From the Cross that held him, and the 
sepulchre that entombed him, we rise in imagination to 
follow his track along the starry skies, onwards to the 
gate of heaven ; and still on, and still up, through 
lines of shouting angels, to the throne of the Eternal. 



THE LOVE OF CHEIST. 



149 



He is there now ; and changing the tense, as we behold 
him forgiving our daily sins, supplying our daily wants, 
pouring down daily blessings on our head, we say not, 
Thy love to me was, but thy love to me is, wonderful. 
And never till we ourselves have passed in at heaven's 
gate, and behold its lofty thrones and shining ones, the 
glory that Jesus has with the Father and shares with 
his brethren, never till the palm of victory is in our 
own hands, and a blood-bought crown is on our own 
heads, never till we walk the streets that are paved 
with gold, and join the songs that are as the voice of 
many waters, shall we sufficiently understand what we 
owe to the love of Christ ; how justly we may address 
to him these words, Thy love to me was wonderful. 



Ilw #OWJJk fit tiktltt. 



" Thus it becometh us to fulfill all righteousness." — Matt. iii. 15 

"Behold he shall come up like a lion from the 
swelling of Jordan." " If in the land of peace," it is 
elsewhere said, " wherein thou trustedst, they wearied 
thee, what wilt thou do in the swelling of Jordan ?" 
To the eye of the Jew, as these expressions shew, 
the Jordan seemed a noble and majestic river. They 
called it the river of God. 

There is no river in the world we should like so 
well to see as this. It is not remarkable for its 
length. On the contrary, like a restless man who 
starts from the innocence of childhood, and pursuing 
a passionate, vicious, and turbulent career, soon ends 
it in perdition, Jordan, springing from the pure snows 
of Lebanon, after a brief, and boisterous, and rapid 
course, loses itself in a sea, emphatically called the 
" Dead," — on whose shores no green thing grows ; 
in whose briny waters no creature lives ; and into 
whose bosom, appropriate type of hell, the stream is 
ever running in, and not a drop runs out. 

Nor is the Jordan remarkable for the volume of 
its waters. At its highest flood, when, swollen by 
melted snows, it roars between bank and brae, it is 

(150) 



THE EXAMPLE OF CHRIST. 



151 



but a rivulet compared to the waters that, gather from 
many an inland sea, leap roaring over the cataract 
of Niagara ; or those that, fed with Himalayan snows, 
and draining the very summits of our planet, roll 
their majestic volume onward to different and distant 
oceans. Still, notwithstanding that the Jordan, like 
Bethlehem Ephratah which was little among the cities 
of Judah, is little among the rivers of our earth, no 
river, neither the Tiber that washes the old walls 
of Rome, nor the Euphrates, that once rolled through 
Eden's garden, nor the Nile, which bore the infant 
Moses on its bosom and changed before his rod into 
blood, has a fame like Jordan's ; or floats down the 
course of time the memory of so many glorious, mar- 
vellous, miraculous events. 

Flowing through the grassy valley of the Cities 
of the Plain, it poured its hissing stream on Sodom's 
burning ruins. Then what a joyful sight was the 
distant gleam of its waters to a nation that had burst 
the bonds of slavery, and were drawing to a close 
their forty years' march to freedom ! Like castaways, 
tossed for weeks on the open ocean, when they catch 
the first sight of land ; like sinners, after a long, and 
dark, and weary struggle, when they obtain their first 
clear view of salvation through the blood of Christ, 
with what joyful shouts the Hebrews had hailed the 
Jordan as they saw it stretch its silver lining along 
the border of the promised land. Once on its banks, 
how many great events of their eventful history were 
associated with that river — cluster around its name! 
On these banks the march that began with a divided 



152 



THE EXAMPLE OF CHRIST. 



sea, ends with a divided flood. Walled in by crystal 
waters, and stretching from the one to the other shore, 
the bed of the river is crowded with a host that pass 
dry-shod through, with trumpets sounding and ban- 
ners flying — proving that though Aaron slept in his 
grave on Hor, and Moses in an unknown tomb, he was 
with them who never sleeps ; whose " ear is never 
heavy that it cannot hear, nor his hand shortened that 
it cannot save." 

Now Jordan grows familiar with miracles. Its 
rocks were the haunt of the ravens that left their cal- 
low brood to cater for a hungry prophet. Its waters 
felt the stroke of Elijah's mantle, and, reeling back, 
fled to leave a path for feet so soon to step into a 
fiery chariot, and be whirled away to heaven. Some- 
where on its willowy banks the chariot descended 
that, greater than ever bore victor in his triumph or 
monarch to his throne, bore off to the skies this daunt- 
less martyr and deathless man. And here, also, in 
that olden time, his steps directed by a captive child; 
came the Syrian with leprous skin as white as snow ; 
and in these waters to which, type of those where 
souls are cleansed, God communicated a healing virtue, 
the leper bathed — rising from the seventh plunge with 
his flesh like a little child's. 

Great and brilliant miracles as were these events, 
they pale their fires before that recorded in this chap- 
ter. We have seen the ark of gopher-wood holding 
the bed of Jordan dry, till the last of the Hebrews 
h/id stepped on Canaan's shore ; we have seen the 
rough mantle of Elijah, both in his own hand and in 



THE EXAMPLE OP CHRIST. 153 

his servant's, cleave the parting flood ; we have seen 
the raven's black wing as it sailed across it — the 
strange purveyor of God's faithful prophet ; we have 
seen the Syrian bathe in its waves, and, erred of the 
incurable, leave his leprosy behind him ; but Jordan's 
last, is its greatest celebrity. Here, in form not of 
dead wood but living flesh, is the true ark of God ; 
the mantle that enrobed divinity ; one t^> whom not 
ravens but angels ministered ; he whose precious 
blood, as it streamed from many gaping wounds, and 
poured adown the cross, filled the fountain where, 
not leprosy, but something yet more fatal, sins are 
washed away. Unknown to the multitude with whom 
he mingles, Jesus stands on the brink of Jordan ; and, 
certainly not least of all that river's wonders, he who 
baptizes his church with the Holy Ghost, solicits the 
baptism of its waters from a servant's hand. 

When Jesus, girded with a towel, to perform the 
most menial office, knelt to wash Simon's feet, he 
shrunk from the honour, and remonstrated with his 
Master saying, Lord, thou shalt not wash my feet. 
Just so the Baptist, recognizing in this candidate for 
baptism, the Lamb, the Love, the Son of God, the 
Divine Master, to whom he felt himself unworthy do 
the meanest office, shrunk back ; and venturing also to 
remonstrate, said, I have need to be baptized of thee, 
and comest thou to me ? " Suffer it to be so now," 
said our Lord, " for thus it becometh us to fulfill all 
righteousness." A sovereign's wishes have the author- 
ity of commands. John bows to Christ's word ; they 
go down into the stream ; and bending his blessed 
7* 



154 



THE EXAMPLE OP CHRIST. 



head, Jesus has water poured on it by the hands of 
John. Wonderful humility! A wonder this that 
eclipses all the others. He was purer than the snows 
from which these waters flowed, yet, as if he was a 
sinner needing to be washed, he receives baptism by 
water at the hands of man ; and that in the selfsame 
hour as he received the baptism of the spirit at the 
hands of God, when the snow-white dove, dropping 
from the skies, folded its wings, and rested on his head. 
Then, its waters not hastening away, but hastening to 
kiss its Creator's feet, and receive their consecration 
from the head they were poured on, we may apply to 
Jordan the words of the Psalm, " The waters saw thee, 
God, the waters saw thee." 

Such were the circumstances in which our Lord 
kpoke the words of my text ; and on it, as on a nail, 
let me hang some observations in illustration of the ex- 
ample which he sets us of piety toward God. I re- 
mark — 

I. We see how faithfully Jesus observed the forms and 
duties of religion. 

I have read of a distinguished general who con- 
ducted an army by forced marches, through a sterile as 
well as hostile country. They were footsore, worn, 
and weary ; supplied with the scantiest fare, and toil- 
ing all day long, through heavy sands, and beneath a 
scorching sun. Yet his brave men pressed on — such 
as fell out of the line by day, unless shot down by the 
foe who crouched like tigers in every bush, and hung 
in clouds on their flanks and rear, rejoining their rank3 



THE EXAMPLE OF CHRIST. 



155 



in the cool and darkness of the night. Thus this gallant 
army, undaunted and indomitable, accomplished a great 
achievement in arms. And how ? They were inspired 
by their commander. Foregoing the privileges of his 
rank, he dismounted from his horse to put himself not 
only at the head of his men, but on a level with them. 
He shared their hard bed ; he lived on their scanty 
rations ; every foot they walked he walked ; every foe 
they faced he faced ; every hardship they endured he 
bore ; and with cheek as brown, and limbs as weary, 
and couch as rude as theirs, he came down to their 
condition — touched by their infirmities, and teaching 
them by his example what part to act, and with what 
patience to endure. They would have followed him to 
the cannon's mouth — his cry not Forward but Follow. 

Now, nothing invests the ordinary means of grace 
with such importance, as to see our Lord, like one of 
ourselves, observing them. He was independent of all 
means, and stood in no need of such aids. Yet, able 
to walk without these crutches, and rise without help 
from such wings, he stoops to our condition, that he 
may teach us by his own example the devout and dili- 
gent use of all the means of grace. 

First, He prayed. How much of his time did 
prayer occupy ; how little perhaps of ours ? — The sun 
that left him on his knees, having gone round the 
world, returned to find him on the same spot, and en- 
gaged in the same employment. Jesus Christ, a whole 
night in prayer ; alone on the mountain with God ; 
what fact, what picture could so well illustrate the 
apostolic precept, Pray without ceasing ! 



156 



THE EXAMPLE OP CHRIST. 



Secondly, He punctually attended worship in the 
house of God. At those periods which may be said to 
correspond with our communion seasons, he repaired to 
Jerusalem — travelling for that purpose the breadth of 
the land ; and though no priestly voices, as when the 
ark was brought up by David, raised the cry, " Lift up 
your heads, ye gates, and be ye lifted up, ye everlast- 
ing doors, that the King of glory may come in," yet in 
him, disguised as a common worshipper, the temple re- 
ceived its God. A greater than the ark was there. 
Though often weary, like other artizans, with the toil 
of the week, he sought no excuse in bodily fatigue for 
staying at home on Sabbath ; or for turning his back 
on the place of worship to breathe the fresh air of the 
country, or seek relaxation amid fragrant, flowery 
fields. With his little hand in Mary's, he accompanied 
her and Joseph to the synagogue of Nazareth ; and 
the boy's sweet, gentle voice rose in the psalms of the 
sanctuary ; and often, with his intelligent eye fixed on 
the speaker, he listened to grey old men as, ignorant of 
who sat there, they opened Isaiah, and preached about 
himself, and breathed out pious and patriotic wishes, 
that the long looked for Messiah, the hope of Israel, 
and Saviour thereof in a time of trouble, might soon 
appear. He who in early childhood was conducted 
with pious care to the synagogue, was often seen going 
there when a man ; the widow and the mother leaning 
on his arm, whose kindness he repaid in his life, and 
remembered on his cross. On many a quiet Sabbath 
morning, when the plough rested in the furrow, and 
oxen free from the yoke, roamed the pastures, he might 



THE EXAMPLE OF CHRIST. 



157 



be seen filling up the time with celestial talk, as he led 
the twelve through blushing vineyards and fields of 
golden corn, to the house of God. He was a living, 
walking, devout, divine illustration of the Apostle's 
precept — Neglect not the assembling of yourselves to- 
gether. 

Observe the lesson. The feet that carried Jesus to 
the church, trample in the dust the dreams, the proud 
and presumptuous notions, of such as affect a piety so 
lofty as to be above the need of means. How do the 
hills, on whose green sward he left the impress of his 
knees, teach us to pray, to be diligent in prayer ; and 
the mountain cloud, and curtains of the night — his 
closet, how do they teach us to be mindful especially 
of secret prayer. It is then, as when lovers are alone, 
or the child lies on its father's bosom, or a daughter is 
folded in a mother's arms, that the heart is freest to 
pour forth its feelings ; and sweetest, closest intimacy 
is enjoyed between the Bride and bridegroom, the 
saved and the Saviour, the penitent and his God. 

The Bible says, Pray without ceasing — Neglect not 
the assembling of yourselves together — Do this in re- 
membrance of me — Go ye into all the world, and preach 
the gospel to every creature — Search the Scriptures. 
In all these duties Jesus leads the way. In that cot- 
tage, sitting by the window, when the day's work is 
done, with the evening sun streaming though the vine- 
leaves on its pages, see his head bent over an open 
Bible. He reads, and Mary listens. In that cottage, 
also, see him rise from his humble couch, and passing 
on to an inner room, shut the door on himself— he is 



158 



THE EXAMPLE OF CHRIST. 



closeted, alone, with God. In these and other things, 
he fulfils all righteousness ; teaching us, in the devout 
use of Bible, church, and closet, to follow his steps. 

II. Let me exhort you to the diligent use of these 
means of grace. 

I have no faith nor trust to put in any road to hea- 
ven other than that which our Saviour trod. Our 
Forerunner, he has left his foot-prints on the path of 
ordinances ; and holding him to be our Pattern as 
well as our Propitiation, I will venture on no path but 
that he travelled. Can anything be plainer than this, 
that if our blessed Lord did not neglect the means of 
grace, much less should we, can we afford to do so ? 
How far wrong, therefore, are those, belonging to the 
Society of Friends, or to sects which have sprung up 
in our own day, who, though in many respects exemp- 
lary Christians, affect a spirituality to which our Lord 
lent no sanction ! Eashly disparaging, and dispensing 
with the use of appointed ordinances, they say that 
a Christian man should be above such beggarly ele- 
ments and rudimentary things, cultivating nothing but 
a purely spiritual worship. 

These good people seem to forget that we are not 
yet in heaven ; nor are yet fit for it. We need all 
possible help to get there ; and with the tide running 
strong the other way, require to put every oar in the 
water, and crowd all sail upon the mast. Dragged 
downward by the many and powerful attractions of 
this world, we can no more afford to dispense with 
m^ans than a bird to dispense with wings. The Chris- 



THE EXAMPLE OF CHRIST. 



159 



tian, spurning the earth is to rise like a lark, singing 
and soaring in the skies ; but mark how, while that 
bird sings, she beats the air with rapid pinions, and 
makes ceaseless efforts to ascend. Instead of treating 
the means of grace with neglect, had we been more 
devout and diligent in the use of them ; had we risen 
as early to our prayers as men to their work — the peas 
ant to the plough, the weaver to the loom, the smith to 
his glowing forge ; had we been as prompt to improve 
Sabbaths, sacraments, prayer meetings, and holy sea- 
sons, as the merchant rising markets, to make money ; 
the traveller gleams of fine weather, to push home- 
ward ; the seamen times of fair wind to shake out all 
his canvas — how much more Christlike had we been ; 
how much better prepared for death ; how much near- 
er heaven ; how much more fit, and not only more fit 
for it, but fonder of it, and ready to say with Christ, 
I leave the world, and go to my Father ! 

HI. Let me exhort you, thirdly, to a devout use of 
these means of grace. 

I say, a devout as well as a diligent use of them. 
For true religion does not lie in these. If religion is 
not in the heart it is nowhere. He lies under the fatal 
error who is satisfied with himself, because, like a blind 
horse in a mill-course, he goes round, and round, and 
round the outer circle of religious duties. Unless 
these have the effect of humbling us before a holy God, 
and lay us like Mary at a Saviour's feet ; unless we 
make just the same use of them as the Greeks sought 
to make of Philip, when they said, u Sir, we would see 



160 



THE EXAMPLE OF CHRIST. 



Jesus unless we rise from them as the people from 
the green grass mountain, where they were fed with 
bread from a Saviour's hand ; unless we leave our 
closets and close our Bibles with a deeper sense of sin, 
and a warmer love to Christ, and troubled hearts 
somewhat calmed, and burdened souls somewhat light- 
ened ; unless our morning devotions beget resolutions 
by God's help to fight the battle and bear the cross 
better to-day than yesterday, making each new day a 
new starting point and stage of the journey heaven- 
ward ; and unless we repair to our evening prayers, as 
a soiled and smoke-begrimmed workman to his even- 
ing bath, to wash away the stains and sins of the day 
in the blood of Jesus, we may as well go to bed and 
rise from it, prayerless as others — as the beasts that 
perish. 

Trust not in mere outward duties ; the most scrupu- 
lous and punctual attention to them. How do the 
Jews warn and teach us to look above means to the 
God of means, and seek the grace of which these are 
but the pipes and channels. Who more strictly de- 
vout ; scrupulously religious in a way ? For example, 
lest they should contract ceremonial defilement, they 
would touch no platter till they had washed it ; nor 
eat, though hungry as ravens, till they had washed 
their hands. So scrupulous were they in payment of 
tithes, that they tithed more than God ordered to be 
tithed ; examples of men " religious over much," they 
not only paid dues on flocks and herds, and vineyards, 
and olive-yards, and corn-fields, but on common pot- 
herbs — anise, mint, and cummin. The disciples coul£ 



THE EXAMPLE OP CHRIST. 



161 



not pluck some ears of corn on their way to church to 
satisfy their hunger, and grind them in their hands, 
nor could our Lord himself impart visions to sight- 
less eye-balls, but they must challenge these things as 
breaches of the holy Sabbath. Nor, though they scru- 
pled not to murder " the Holy One and the Just/' 
could they permit his poor, mangled body to hang 
after sun-down on the cross, lest the ceremonial law 
should sujffer violence in its smallest letter. Yet what 
availed their sabbaths, and feasts, and tithes, and wash- 
ings, and costly sepulchres raised to the memories of 
martyred prophets ? These did not hinder them from 
crucifying the Lord of glory, nor save their temple 
from the Roman fire-brand, and Jerusalem from the 
Roman ploughshare. They had the form of godliness 
without its power. 

Nor will the means of grace prove means to save or 
sanctify us unless they are used in another spirit than 
theirs. We are to use them diligently, but devoutly, 
in dependence on the grace of God ; that bringing 
us into his presence and under his sanctifying power, 
we may be saved, not only from the punishment, but 
from the thraldom and love of sin. Means — the table 
of the Lord, the pulpit, the pages of the Bible, the 
family altar, the closet oratory, are of no value unless 
as putting us in communication with the Spirit of 
God ; and used as the kite which the philosopher sends 
up to draw down the lightnings of the skies ; or the 
bucket which the cottager sends down to draw up wa- 
ter from the well. Then, powerless as they are in 
themselves, they become the blessed and mighty instm 



162 



THE EXAMPLE OF CHRIST. 



ments of spiri tual good — the sails that catch the wind 
and impel the vessel on ; the concave mirror that, 
placed before the Sun of Righteousness, gathers his 
beams into its burning focus to warm the coldest, and 
melt the hardest heart ; eagle- wings to raise our souls 
to heaven ; conduits, like the .pipes that bring water to 
our city from these Pentland hills, to convey streams 
of grace, and peace, and purity from their fountain in 
heaven to their souls on earth. Blessings of the high- 
est value as channels of the grace of God, let us use 
them not diligently only, but devoutly ; in the spirit 
and after the example of him who, " in the days of his 
flesh offered up prayers and supplications with strong 
crying and tears — and was heard in that he feared." 
As the great apostle says — Who is Paul and who is 
Apollos but ministers by whom ye believed, even as the 
Lord gave to every man. I have planted and Apollos 
watered : but God gave the increase. So then neither 
is he that planteth anything, neither he that watereth ; 
but God that giveth the increase. 

IV. In setting Christ before you as your pattern as 
well as propitiation, I am not calling you to a 
hopeless task. 

In looking at Jesus Christ, as he moves high and 
apart from all of us in his perfectly spotless life, one 
sometimes feels as we have felt when gazing on the 
bright but distant glory of a star that holds on its 
lofty course through the far realms of space. We 
wish to be like Christ ; we long to be like Christ ; but 
to reach his high, and holy, and pure, and spotless 



THE EXAMPLE OP CHRIST. 



163 



character, seems to be like wishing to reach that orb 
so beautiful and bright and lovely, where haply sorrow 
never weeps, and sin has never entered. But to rise 
to his example, to attain to his holy and blameless life, 
ah ! that seems as impossible as to climb the ethereal 
heights where that bright orb is shining, as it shone on 
Eden, and shall shine when the judgment of this world 
is come. We say, Who is sufficient for these things ? 
The one seems at times as impracticable and impossi- 
ble as the other. 

Impossible ? With God all things are possible. He 
has never promised that we shall reach the one ; but 
his truth and his word are pledged for it that we shall 
attain to the other. He might again lower Jacob's 
ladder ; or let down some other means of communica- 
tion by which we could climb the skies, and rise to that 
lofty star, and, standing on its golden rim, might see 
ten thousand worlds, half the host of heaven, rolling 
beneath our feet. He has done a greater thing than 
this — letting down a ladder, for the humblest and 
weakest of us to climb, that we may not only rise to 
Christ's place, but attain to the perfection of his char- 
acter. " When we see him, we shall be like him as he 
is." 

Then we shall be like him ; every saint in heaven a 
true, pure, polished mirror in which the king sees his 
own moral beauty. They shall be sanctified, and 
crowned, and throned like himself. And even now, how 
much more like him we might have been, had we only 
been more devout in spirit, and more diligent in the use 
of means. It is not by fits and starts that men be* 



164 



THE EXAMPLE OF CHRIST. 



come holy. It is not occasional, but continuous, pro- 
longed, and life-long efforts that are required ; to be 
daily at it ; always at it ; resting but to renew the 
work ; falling but to rise again. It is not by a few 
rough, spasmodic blows of the hammer, that a graceful 
statue is brought out of the marble block, but by the 
labour of continuous days, and many delicate touches 
of the sculptor's chisel. It is not a sudden gush of 
water, the roaring torrent of a summer flood, but a 
continuous flow, that wears the rock, and a constant 
dropping that hollows out the stone. It is not with a 
rush and a spring that we are to reach Christ's charac- 
ter, attain to perfect saintship ; but step by step, foot by 
foot, hand over hand, we are slowly and often painfully 
to mount the ladder that rests on earth, and rises to 
heaven. 




M For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death 
of his Son ; much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his 
life."— Romans v. 10. 

Among the ten thousand plants that clothe the naked 
world, from the cedar of Lebanon to the hyssop on the 
wall, or, as we would say, from the pine on the moun- 
tains to the lichen on the rock, none are found where 
the execution falls short of the design. Nor among the 
countless tribes of animals which people the regions 
of air, earth, and water, does God in any case appear 
to have begun a work and stopped in the middle — left 
it imperfect. He never made an unfinished flower, or 
an unfinished insect, and it were strange if he should 
make an unfinished saint ; and that we should not be 
able to say of those whom he redeemed with the blood 
of his Son, what I can say of every primrose on the 
bank, and of every sea-shell on the shore — Great and 
marvellous are thy works, Lord God Almighty ; just 
and true are thy ways, thou King of saints. Who 
shall not fear thee, Lord, and glorify thy name ? 

u Wherefore hast tl ou made all men in vain ?" " I 
saw the prosperity of the wicked — there are no bands 
in their death ; their strength is firm ; they are not 
troubled as other men, neither are they plagued as 

(165) 



166 



RECONCILED AND SAVED. 



other men. Therefore pride compasseth them about ; 
their eyes stand out with fatness ; they have more 
than heart could wish ; they prosper in the world ; 
they increase in riches. Verily I have cleansed my 
heart in vain, and washed my hands in innocency. 
For all day long have I been plagued, and chastened 
every morning." These plaints and questions prove 
that the book of Providence is not so easily read as 
that of Nature ; that its wisdom in design and per- 
fection in execution are by no means as plain. Here 
God's way is often in the sea, his path in the mighty 
waters, and his footsteps are not known. But that is 
because the scheme of providence is not, like creation, 
a finished work. Take a man to a house when the arch- 
itect is in the middle of his plan, and with walls half 
built, and arches half sprung, rooms without doors, 
and pillars without capitals, what appears perfect or- 
der to the architect who has the plan all in his eye, 
to the other will seem a scene of perfect confusion ; 
and so stands man amid that vast scheme of provi- 
dence which God began six thousand years ago, and 
may not finish for as many thousand years to come. 
Raised to the throne of Egypt, Joseph saw why God 
had permitted him to be cast into a pit, sold into 
slavery, and though innocent of any crime, committed 
to prison. And raised to heaven, looking back on 
God's dealings with him in this world, and seeing 
how there was not a turn in the road nor a crook 
in his lot but was good, how his trials turned out 
blessings, and that, while others lost by their gains, 
he gained by every loss, the saint, now that God's 



RECONCILED AND SAVED. 



167 



works of providence stand before him in all then 
completeness, shall take his harp, and throwing his 
soul into the song, sing with the rest around the 
throne — Great and marvellous are thy works, Lord 
God Almighty ; just and true are thy ways thou King 
of saints. 

Now, God's work in grace forms no exception to his 
works in nature, and in providence. A man designs 
a great literary work, and he dies ; or throwing it 
aside for something else, he leaves the world but a 
fragment of it. The studio of the painter has un- 
finished pictures ; our streets have unfinished houses ; 
and man has many a plan lodged in his busy brain 
that he never or but partly executes. But where God 
begins a good work he carries it on to the day of the 
Lord Jesus. He does not stop in the middle. No. Hell 
holds none that were ever converted ; Christ plucks 
no brand from the burning to toss it back again into 
the fire ; and though few may pass in at the strait 
gate, none that ever went in afterwards came out 
No, thank God ! Salvation once begun, is not a thing 
of chance or fortune — there being undoubted security 
that, here, as elsewhere, God's work shall not come 
short of his gracious design. " For if, when we were 
enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of 
his Son ; so much more, being reconciled, we shall be 
saved by his life." 

I. Consider our state by nature — we are the enemies 
of God. 

Some things, such as the harmony between the di- 



168 



RECONCILED AND SAVED. 



vine decrees and man's responsibility, such as three 
persons existing in one Godhead, we are to receive 
and to believe on the simple authority of God's word. 
There are other things, again, in which, " as face 
answereth to face in water," so the state of our hearts 
answereth to the statements of God's word ; and such 
is the case with Paul's saying, The carnal mind is 
enmity against God. For was there ever a man who 
underwent a saving change that did not feel when 
he was converted that he was conquered, when he 
is sanctified that he is subdued ? This enmity does 
not lie, as some fancy, in bad habits, education, or 
other such accidental and extraneous circumstances. 
It has its source in the mind itself. Regarded as a 
disease, it is not like a cold which any one may take, 
but a consumption, which is constitutional and here- 
ditary : and what are all these sins and crimes 
which the apostle describes as works of the flesh, 
"adultery, fornication, uncleanliness, lasciviousness, 
idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, 
wrath, strife, seditions, envyings, murders, drunken- 
ness, revilings, and such like," but, like the flushed 
cheek, the languid eye, and throbbing temples, and 
bounding pulse of fever, the symptoms of an enmity 
that lies lurking in every heart? The temptations 
and circumstances that call out the enmity in so many 
different ways, and to so many different degrees, no 
more create it than the showers and sunshine create 
the deadly hemlock which has its seed in the soil. 

Vor is this all the truth. Consumption, fell and 
deadly as it is, usually threatens and attacks but one 



RECONCILED AND SAVED. 169 

organ. The constitution may be otherwise hale and 
sound. The best things, it may indeed be said, have 
their defects — there are spots in the sun for instance ; 
there is more or less of alloy in all gold ; and weeds 
spring up to deform the fairest gardens. But, as is 
proved, whenever circumstances occur to call it out, 
this enmity affects the whole man ; so that he is as 
much under its influence as every sail, yard, mast and 
timber of a ship, are under the government of her 
helm. True, that does not always appear ; but no 
more does the fire that sleeps in the cold flint, until 
there be a collision with steel ; ah, see how it flashes 
out then — fire in every chip of the flint, in the whole 
texture and fabric of the stone. The carnal mind, ac- 
cording to Paul, not only lias, but is, enmity against 
God. Enmity is of its very nature, as it is of the na- 
ture of grass to be green, or sugar to be sweet, or vin- 
egar to be sour. If it were not so, man would not need 
to be born again, to get a new heart ; like a watch that 
had but started a jewel, or lost the tooth of a wheel, it 
were enough to be repaired without being renewed. 

What a plain and affecting proof of this have we 
in that history of our blessed Lord, which is not more 
a beautiful exhibition of love on God's part, than a 
hateful one of hatred on man's. Here is the thing ; 
so put to the proof that there is no occasion for spec- 
ulation ; nor any room for dispute. Here is God in- 
carnate ; here is God in Christ ; in the most favour- 
able of all circumstances for man — God in Christ 
reconciling the world unto himself, coming not to con- 
demn the world, but that the world by him might be 
8 



170 



RECONCILED AND SAVED. 



saved. And did he find in men friends or foes ? 1 
once saw the poor, pale, cold corpse of a beautiful little 
girl taken out of the roaring flood in which her father 
— he was a drunkard — when drowning himself, drowned 
her ; monster, and slave of vice, he was seen to raise 
his hand in the black swirling pool and lay it on her 
young head, pressing it down till he and she both sank 
together. But fancy a drowning man raising himself 
before he sank, and putting forth his dying strength to 
wound the hand stretched out to save him — to plunge 
a knife into the heart of a kind man who had periled 
his own life to save his. What hatred were that, 
which could prompt to so black a deed ! Yet, when 
they dragged him to the rock of Nazareth to cast him 
over, when the kiss of Judas was on his cheek, when 
the cry of " crucify him " was in his ear, when the 
thorns pierced his brows, and the iron nailed him to the 
cross, did not God in Christ feel that he had come not 
to save his friends, but to save his enemies ? I would 
hold any man my enemy that would kill my son ; and 
if men by nature were not God's enemies, why did 
they kill his Son ? why do they still reject him ? The 
letters did not burn so bright on the plaster of Bel- 
shazzar's wall, nor does the sun shine brighter in the 
heavens than these words on the cross — he that run- 
neth may read them — " Herein is love indeed, not that 
we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his son to 
be the propitiation of our sins." 

II. Consider the reconciliation. 
The time has come when Jacob must face an angrj 



RECONCILED AND SAVED. 



171 



brother, He had taken cruel advantage of Esau's 
necessities, and still worse of his ungodliness, to pos- 
sess himself of the birthright. There are men who 
will buy the widow's bible when the cries of hungry 
children tempt her to sell it ; but Jacob did not sin 
against a hungry man merely, — the man was a hungry 
brother. I am at the point to die, cried Esau, and 
what profit shall this birthright be unto me ? Besides 
most cruelly possessing himself of the birthright, Jacob 
most foully defrauded Esau of the blessing. He had 
settled the account with God, and was forgiven. He 
had to settle it with his brother now ; and the pros- 
pect, as well it might, filled him with alarm. So when 
the messengers returned, saying, Thy brother cometh 
to meet thee, and four hundred men with him, it went 
like a knife to his heart. The shock threw him on his 
knees. God of my father Abraham, he cried, God of 
my father Isaac, deliver me from the hand of my brother, 
from the hand of Esau, for I fear him lest he will come 
and smite me ; and the mother with the children. Busy, 
guilty, fancy conjures up a dreadful retribution — Esau's 
long pent up wrath breaking in a bloody tempest on 
his head. Already he hears the shouts of the assail- 
ants, and the groans of the wounded ; sees his poor 
children lie bleeding at his feet, and Rachel in the 
grasp of a ruthless foe, stretching out her arms, and 
beseeching him to save her. What shall he do ? Fight ? 
It is vain to think of that. Esau's master in cunning, he 
is no match for the bold hunter in open battle. Flee ? 
Encumbered with wives and little ones, he will rather 
die with than desert, it is vain to think of fleeing. One 



172 



RECONCILED AND SAVED. 



refuge is still open to him ! — our first, and last, and 
best resort. He betakes himself to prayer ; wrestling 
with God till the break of day. I have seen the sun 
set on a troubled sea where the billows burst in white 
foam on rocky headlands, and roared in thunders on 
the beach ; and to-morrow the same sun set on the same 
sea, smooth as a glassy mirror. A change as great, 
and in as short a time, has passed on the soul of 
Jacob. Yesternight was spent in an agony of prayer ; 
and this night he lays his head in sweet peace on 
its pillow. He has been pressed to Esau's bosom ; 
the long estranged brothers have looked each other in 
the face ; have embraced ; have kissed each other ; 
and wept together ; and buried in one grave Esau's 
wrongs and Jacob's crimes— being enemies they were 
reconciled. 

Blessed change to Jacob ; and yet but a faint image 
of our reconciliation to an offended God ! What is 
that? what does it imply? what blessings does it 
bring ? We shall never know them, never know them 
fully on this side the grave — till we get to heaven ; for 
eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered 
into the heart of man, the things which God hath pre- 
pared for them that love him. But this, meanwhile, we 
know, reconciliation is sin pardoned ; death discrown- 
ed ; peace of conscience ; a sense of divine love ; a 
sight of coming glory ; the prospect when the ills of 
life are past and the storms of life are over, and the 
battle of life is fought, and the burdens of life are 
borne, and this body is mingling in the grave with kin- 
dred dust, that our spirits shall join the kindred spirits! 



RECONCILED AND SAVED. 



173 



of the skies, and be forever with the Lord. Ah, were 

we assured of our reconciliation to God, and did we 
estimate it aright, how often, like one who said to his 
physician when he told him that he would recover, 
Don't say it ! or, like another who said when told that 
he was dying, It is the best news I have heard for a 
long time — would our longing souls spread out their 
wings to depart ; how welcome the hour when death 
should sever the last tie that bound us to earth and 
kept us from heaven ! 

III. The means of reconciliation. 

Suppose a man is lying under sentence of death ! 
Shrinking from the gallows tree, he has sent off a peti- 
tion for mercy ; and waits the answer in anxious sus- 
pense. One day his ear catches rapid steps approaching 
his door — they stop there. The chain is dropped ; the 
bolts are drawn ; a messenger enters with his fate — 
on these lips, death or life. And the answer ? Ah ; 
the answer is that the sovereign pities the criminal, 
but cannot pardon the crime. The blood deserts his 
cheeks ; his hopes dashed to the ground, he wrings his 
hands, and gives himself up for lost. And now the 
messenger draws near ; and, laying his hand kindly 
on the poor felon's shoulder, tells him that there is one 
way by which he may yet be saved — if the king's son 
would change places with him, put these fetters of his 
on his own limbs and die in his room, that would 
satisfy justice, and set him free. Drowning men will 
catch at straws ; not he at that. The king give uj. 
his son ! the king's son, the prince royal, the heir of 



174 



RECONCILED AND SAVED. 



the kingdom consent to die for a poor, obscure, guilty 
wretch like me, if * there is no hope but that, there is 
do hope at all ! Now fancy, if you can, his astonish- 
ment, sinking to incredulity, and then rising into a 
paroxysm of joy, when the messenger says, I am the 
king's son ; it is my own wish, and my father's will, 
that I should die for you ; for that purpose am I come, 
have I left the palace, and sought you in this dreary 
prison ; take you the pardon, and give me the fetters. 
In me shall the crime be punished ; in you shall the 
criminal be saved. Escape ! Behold, I set before you 
an open door ! 

Such love never was shewn by man. No. But 
greater love has been shewn by God. He gave up his 
Son to death that we might not die but live ; to be 
punished that we might be pardoned ; to shed his 
blood that we might be cleansed from sin ; to be 
buried, that we, buried and bound in the chains of 
death, might rise again. God laid on his own dear 
Son the iniquity of us all. When he hungered and 
thirsted, when the manger was his cradle and the cold 
ground his bed, when his heart was full of sorrow and 
his limbs were racked with pain, when his friends fled 
in terror and his Father hid his face, when his brow was 
crowned with thorns and his body nailed on the cross 
it was that we, being enemies, might be reconciled to 
God by the death of his Son. Did David, when he 
stood beneath night's starry dome, and considered the 
heavens the work of God's fingers, the greatness of 
God, and the littleness of man, exclaim, What is man 
that thou art mindful of him ? how much more may 



RECONCILED AND SAVED. 



175 



God's people break out into expressions of adoring 
wonder, when they stand beneath a cross where, in its 
display of God's glory outshining all the stars, Jesus 
hangs — pouring out his soul to death ; a sacrifice for 
sin ; dying, the just for the unjust, that he might bring 
us to God. No language appears to me so fitted to 
be a vehicle for the feelings that should rise in a be- 
liever's heart as he contemplates that amazing spec- 
tacle, as David's glorious outburst when summoning 
all things celestial and terrestrial to the choir — glori- 
ous angels with their harps, the seasons with their 
voices, woods and meadows with their songs, the skies 
with their thunders, and ocean with its many voiced 
waves ; leader of the song, he cries, Praise ye the 
Lord from the heavens : praise him in the heights : 
praise ye him, all his angels : praise ye him, sun and 
moon : praise him, all ye stars of light : fire and hail : 
snow and vapours ; stormy wind fulfilling his word ; 
kings of the earth and all people ; young men and 
maidens ; old men and children. Praise ye the Lord. 

IV. Reconciled by the death of Christ, his people are 
saved by his life. 

Suppose that our Lord, having satisfied divine jus- 
tice and expired on the cross, had dissolved the union 
between the divine and human natures, and leaving in 
the grave a body which he needs no more, had returned 
to the bosom of his Father — still the Son of God, but 
no longer also the Son of Man, in these circumstances, 
his death had been in vain. There was the medicine, 
but where was the physician to administer it ? thero 



176 



KECONCILED AND SAVED. 



was balm in Gilead, but no physician there. When 
we die our work is done. Not so with Jesus Christ. 
He had a great work to do after his death — a work 
foreshadowed on the great day of atonement in yonder 
ancient temple. The high priest, having sacrificed a 
lamb without spot or blemish, carries its blood in a 
golden bowl within the vail, into the Holy of Holies ; 
offering it before the mercy-seat. By and bye, return- 
ing with the blood that he had offered, he takes a 
bunch of hyssop, and sprinkles it in red showers on 
the people. Now are they ceremonially clean before 
the Lord ; and so David, with his eyes no doubt on 
better blood, prays, Sprinkle me with hyssop and I 
shall be clean ; wash me and I shall be whiter than 
the snow. Even so the great and true High Priest, 
Jesus, rises from yonder grave and ascends to yonder 
throne, that he may apply to his people the benefits of 
his redemption. He lives to provide for our wants on 
earth, and advocate our cause in heaven ; so that our 
life is as much dependent on his as that of the branch- 
es on the tree, or the body's various members on the 
life of their heart and head. Because he liveth we 
live also — it being by a living Saviour that the salva- 
tion procured by his death is made ours, and applied 
to us in all its saving blessings. And if God, when 
we were enemies, was reconciled through the death of 
his Son, being reconciled, God and we now friends, 
how certain is our salvation ! If a man under the in- 
fluence of divine grace love his enemies well, how 
much better will he love his friends ? Shew me a man 
so imbued with the spirit of Christ that he will even 



RECONCILED AND SAVED. 



177 



risk his life to save an enemy, that is not the man to 
abandon his friends in their hour of need, when their 
back is at the wall. Lover of my soul, and Saviour 
of sinners, shall I believe less good of thee than 
of man? If thou didst love us so when we were 
thine enemies, how much more now when we are thy 
friends ! 

We attach little value to what costs us little ; what 
is easily won is carelessly wasted. Of all men they 
are the most careful of their money, who have earned 
it by the hardest labour ; of all churches and nations, 
as history shews, they guard their liberties with the 
most jealous care who have bought them at the great- 
est price ; and of all the lambs in Jesse's flock, I have 
no doubt David loved that one best, and carried it 
most in his bosom, which he had risked his life to pluck 
from the lion's jaws, when, following the spoiler to the 
forest, he faced him, and turned him, and took him by 
beard and smote him. The great price at which Christ 
purchased his people is one great security for their 
safety. He paid too much for these jewels to let Sa- 
tan steal them, or one of them be missing that day 
when he maketh up his jewels. If he came from hea- 
ven to die for you when you hated him, can he leave 
them to perish who now love him ? No, never ! The 
mountains shall depart, he says, and the hills be re- 
moved, but my kindness shall not depart, neither shall 
the covenant of my peace, saith the Lord, that hath 
mercy on thee. 

I hear that in the burst of joy which breaks out in 
heaven whenever a sinner is converted on earth. It 
8* 



178 



RECONCILED AND SAVED. 



was when Goliath fell, his armour ringing on the 
ground, and David with foot on his mighty trunk, stood 
hacking at his giant neck, that shouts rose from the 
lines of Israel ; and spectators on some neighbouring 
hill-top, of a conflict where our countrymen meet the 
foe in battle, we would pray while they fought ; nor, 
till we heard the shout of victory rise from the field 
itself, above the roll of musketry and roar of cannon, 
and saw the foe waver and break and scatter before 
our brothers' arms, would we rise to take up the battle 
cheer, give thanks to God, and give way to a patriot's 

joy. 

But when do the angels, who watch from the skies 
the events of earth, rejoice ? They saw the Magda- 
lene at Jesus' feet ; and while she was weeping, they 
were rejoicing over her. They saw the thief turning 
to Jesus' cross ; and while he was bleeding, they were 
rejoicing over him. It is not when this battle is fought 
out, but begun ; when this race is closed, but entered 
on ; it is at the birth of the new-born soul that there 
is joy in heaven — joy in heaven over every sinner that 
repenteth, and as soon as he repenteth ; because " whom 
he did predestinate, them he also called ; and whom he 
called, them he also justified ; and whom he justified, 
them he also glorified" — and all the devils of her. 
cannot break this linked and golden chain that binds 
the believer to the throne of God. " Whom he lovetb 
he loveth to the end." 



Sir* tttntittim' t Jxitt. 



"0 woman, great is thy faith." — Matt. xv. 28. 

The Scriptures were not written either to amuse our 
fancy, or to gratify our curiosity. Hence they leave 
us unsatisfied in regard to many things and certain 
persons, we should like to be better informed about. 
Actors appear on the stage, play some striking part, 
and when our interest is awakened, the curtain sud- 
denly drops ; and we see them no more. True, we 
may meet again in the other country — the land that is 
afar on 7 . There, seated in the blooming bowers of 
Paradise, with the sea of glass gleaming at our feet, 
we shall relate our own adventures to these saints, and 
hear theirs ; how they fought ; what trials they passed 
through ; what dangers they escaped ; all the provi- 
dences they met with on their way to the promised 
land. 

Who, for example, has not wished to know what be 
came of the young ruler that sought our Lord, saying, 
Good master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life ? 
A more amiable, lovely, attractive character we hardly 
find in history ; and our interest in him suggests the 
question, Did he perish ? Perhaps he did, — a warning 
to us how near we may reach the kingdom of heaven, 

(179) 



180 



THE CHKISTIAN'S FAITH. 



and yet come short of it ; how too great confidence 
may wreck souls as well as ships, even at the harbour's 
mouth. But Jesus loved him ; and we would fain hope 
that as he followed his retreating steps with kindly 
eye, our Lord said within himself, " How shall I give 
thee up Ephraim ? how shall I deliver thee, Israel ? 
how shall I make thee as Admah? how shall I set 
thee as Zeboim ? mine heart is turned within me, my 
repentings are kindled together." However, it is per- 
haps well that the last chapters of his history are 
wanting. These blank leaves are full of meaning ; 
they seem written over with such warnings as these, — 
It is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of hea- 
ven — Set your affections on things above, and not on 
things on the earth, for the things that are seen are 
temporal, but the things which are unseen are eternal 
— Love not the world, neither the things of the world, 
for if any man love the world, the love of the Father 
is not in him — Let the brother of low degree rejoice 
in that he is exalted ; but the rich in that he is made 
low ; because as the flower of the grass he shall pass 
away — for the sun is no sooner risen with a burning 
heat but it withereth the grass, and the flower thereof 
^aileth, and the grace of the fashion of it perisheth ; 
so also shall the rich man fade away in his ways. 

It had been a much more unsatisfactory and serious 
matter, had the story of Joseph ended as abruptly. 
Take it as it stands, and there is no case on record 
more illustrative of a reigning providence. In its full 
details ; in the unbroken story, we see all the liaks of 
the golden chain that binds our world to the skies ; 



THE CHKISTIAN's FAITH. 



181 



like the distinct impression of a man's feet on the 
moist sea-sand, we can trace all the steps of providence 
along the whole coarse of Joseph's history from Ja- 
cob's tents to Pharaoh's palace. We see God's hand 
weaving the dreams of his sleep ; anl guiding him, 
boy, youth, and man, onwards through many vicissi- 
tudes of fortune to the day when they were all ful- 
filled. But what if our last sight of Joseph — his fa- 
ther's darling, man's faithful servant, and virtue's 
noblest hero, had been the prison scene? A story 
which is the delight of children, would then have been 
a riddle to the wisest men ; and instead of forming 
one of the brightest examples of providence, it had 
remained one of its darkest mysteries, to perplex our 
minds and try our faith. Sold into slavery by envious 
brothers ; wronged by the master whom he refused to 
wrong ; a sufferer for conscience' sake ; thrown into 
prison because he was a well-doer ; how might sneer- 
ing sceptics have looked into his history, as the venge- 
ful woman did, perhaps, into his dungeon, to say, Jo- 
seph, where is now thy God ? We thank God that 
his history was written out. Like the saints, he was 
humbled that he might be exalted. The steps of a 
dungeon became a ladder to the throne. And in 
raising him to Pharaoh's right hand, and making him 
the instrument of saving from famine the family of 
which the Messiah was to spring, the providence of 
God shines out from the clouds of his eventful life, clear 
as the sun from the shadow of a passing eclipse. Ver- 
ily, " He is a God that judgeth in the earth." 

We thank God also, and thank him even more, that 



182 THE CHRISTIANAS FAITH. 

the story of the women of Canaan is written out. As 
it stands, it is one of the most encouraging passages 
in the Bible ; had it broken off in the middle, it had 
been one of the most discouraging. There are no 
clouds and darkness around Jehovah's throne more 
impenetrable, or so dreadful, as had in that case hung 
over the character of Christ, and the cross of Calvary. 
Had the curtain fallen on the scene just where our 
Lord seems to lift his foot to spurn the poor suppliant 
away, replying to her cry, " Lord, help me ! " — " It is 
not meet to take the children's bread and give it to 
dogs," the story, instead of a stepping-stone, had been 
a stumbling-block on our way to heaven. It is often 
difficult enough to persuade the desponding that there 
can be mercy for them ; but with this history unfinished, 
it had been all but impossible. Faith would have stag- 
gered under the burden. It had hung like lead on the 
wings of prayer ; and the doubting, timid, trembling 
spirit would have shrunk back, saying, Why should I 
go to Christ ? I am unworthy ; he shall say to me as 
to that woman, It is not meet to take the children's 
bread and cast it to dogs. Unless this incident had 
been told out to its happy close, where had been our 
answer ? our unanswerable answer, to the despondency 
which says Christ may not, and to the despair which 
says Christ will not save me — this, namely, Show us 
in all his history an instance of his having refused 
the prayer of a penitent, or spurned the unworthiest 
away ? As it stands, this story is one of the brightest 
beams of gospel light ; as sweet a stream as any that 
flows from the " Rock of Ages cleft for me." Under 



THE CHRISTIAN'S FAITH. 



\83 



God, how ranch do we owe to the pen that wrote it? 
Ever blessed be the memory of the woman whose faith 
which I would use to illustrate the Christian's, rising 
to the occasion, replied, " Truth, Lord, yet the dogs 
eat of the crumbs that fall from their master's table I " 

L Her earnestness is an example, as her success is an 
encouragement to us. 

The time has arrived for Esther to apply the match, 
and explode the mine beneath Haman. Crying, king, 
if it please the king, let my life be given to my peti- 
tion, and my people to my request ; for we are sold, I 
and my people, to be destroyed, to be slain, and to 
perish, — she reveals her own and her people's danger. 
Struck with astonishment, and fired with indignation, 
the king rises to demand, Who is he, and where is he. 
that durst presume in his heart to do so ? Pointing to 
her guest who turns pale at the Gharge, she says, The 
adversary and enemy is this wicked Haman ! The king 
bursts from the chamber ; and Haman, seeing by the 
glance of his angry eye that " evil is determined against 
him," seizes the moment to start to his feet, and beg 
his life of Esther. Knowing that its sands are run, 
unless he can mollify this stern beauty, he casts the 
ordinary manners and customs of a court to the winds ; 
and throwing himself down on the couch beside her, 
implores her to save him. At this moment her husband 
returns. Goaded to madness at the sight, the cry 
bursts like thunder from his lips, Will he force the 
queen also before me in the house ? It is enough. In 
an instant the mutes are at Haman's side ; tho muffle 



184 



THE CHEISTIAN'S FAITH. 



Is on his face ; the bow-string is round his neck ; it 
tightens ; he sinks — and lies, as sinners seeking mercy 
never lay at the feet of Jesus, a corpse at Esther's feet. 
Bad as Hainan was, the king wronged him ; he put a 
false construction on the last scene. The imminence 
of the danger, the instinctive love of life, these made 
this wretched man earnest ; and earnestness made 
him importunate ; bold to familiarity, as a man would 
who was falling over some horrid crag, he clutched at 
the queen. 

Earnestness is importunate ; and I am afraid that 
we sometimes form too harsh a judgment of the poor 
mendicant who refuses to be denied — repelling him as 
impudent, who is only importunate. It was no want 
of respect, nor insolent contempt either of our position, 
or of our rights that made a man, on being refused 
charity, take rude possession of the door, and say, as 
he planted his foot on the threshold, Sir, I will not go 
away — I stay, or starve here till I am relieved. Eoused 
by so bold a movement, we looked up to read the sad 
truth and reason in his face. A languid eye, and the 
deep hollow in his sallow cheek told at once that his 
was not the impudence of practised beggary, but the 
importunity of starvation. He was a stranger in a 
strange land ; he had left his children moaning for 
bread, and their mother had none to give them. 

And when the spirit pleads at the throne of God, 
when guilt, flying from justice, is knocking loud and 
long at the door of mercy, one not in earnest himself 
may wonder at the language which earnestness ven- 
tures to employ. Why should they wonder? Hsr 



THE CHRISTIAN'S FAITH. 



185 



loyal subjects, standing at respectful distance, address 
their sovereign in respectful terms ; using courtly lan- 
guage tc a courtly ear. But let a royal cortege pass 
the procession that conducts a felon to the scaffold, as 
a drowning man who sees a plank float by grasps at 
life, he, bursting from his guards, springs to her side ; 
clings to her robe, to cry, Oh, pardon, save me ! and 
when to her order, Unhand me, let me pass — he an- 
swers, No ; I will not let thee go — who so hard-hearted 
as to beat the wretch away ; or so blind as not to see 
that this is not insolence, but earnestness ? 

Even so Jacob, in dread of Esau's vengeance, clung 
to God ; and, wrought up to a state of intensest feel- 
ing, as if Jehovah had been in his hands, not he in 
Jehovah's, hung on him, saying, I will not let thee go 
unless thou bless me. How bold this language ! And 
thus also the Psalmist addressed God in yet bolder lan- 
guage. No man more humble than David — no man 
ever laid a venerable head lower in the dust before the 
majesty of God, as he said, "lama worm and no man ;" 
yet see how this worm rises ! In language which an 
angel never ventured on, because an angel never felt 
as he, hear how he speaks to God, " Why withdrawest 
thou thy hand ? pluck it out of thy bosom. Awake, 
why sleepest thou, Lord ? arise for our help ? make 
haste, God, to help me." And even so this Canaan- 
ite was importunate because she was earnest. If there 
be any boldness, any forwardness, any obtruding of her 
case on Jesus, it is to be imputed to this, that — a 
mother with a mother's heart — she had a daughter 
grievously vexed with a devil. Be followers of me, 



186 



THE CHRISTIAN S FAITH. 



Bbe says. Let faith be earnest, in prayer ! The more 
the bow is bent, the higher the arrow flies. 

H. Observe the trials to which Christ put his earnest- 
ness and faith. These were three. 

1. His silence. 

Men miss many opportunities of being saved — one 
at least every Sabbath. The castaways who have float- 
ed on wreck or raft to some lonely rock or desert 
island, miss none. Ever on the outlook, they no sooner 
descry a sail out at sea, than they kindle their signal 
fire and raise a flag of distress ; rushing down to the 
beach, and uniting their voices, they raise one long, 
loud, piercing shout, — crying themselves hoarse against 
the hoarse murmurs of the deep. They let slip no 
opportunity of being taken off ; and like them, not like 
many a sinner, so soon as this woman saw relief in 
Christ approaching the coast of Tyre and Sidon, she 
hastened to meet him. Not saying like us, It will do 
to-morrow, or next Sabbath, or some other day, or in 
another year, she seized the opportunity that might 
never return ; and came to Jesus, crying, Have mercy 
on me, Lord, thou son of David : my daughter is 
grievously vexed with a devil. In stories of the sea I 
have read how the castaways, seeing a ship in the off- 
ing made signals of distress ; and in what agonies of 
suspense they watched her as she went about on this 
tack and then on that — hope rising as she approached, 
and sinking as she left the coast ; and how when at 
length, not seeing or not heeding their signals, she 
sailed away from their lonely rock, they would throw 



THE CHRISTIAN'S FAITH. 



187 



themselves down on the beach to weep out their an- 
guish. So passed the Saviour by this woman. I know 
not that he so much as turned his head to look on her. 
If he did, as if he had shut up his compassions from 
her, as if he had no human sympathies, as if he was 
not bone of her bone and flesh of her flesh, as if he 
had a heart of stone, as if a woman's prayer was not 
as powerful to stop this Sun of righteousness in his 
course as was Joshua's to stop the sun of heaven — 
Jesus went on his way ; " he answered her not a 
word." 

Now for the example of faith she sets ! Mark that ; 
nor be content to admire, but follow her. To rise 
from her knees disappointed, chagrined, deeply morti- 
fied ; to complain, He might at least have pitied me, — 
a broken-hearted mother and her poor child were not 
unworthy of a kind word, and, if I was to be refused, 
of a refusal tenderly expressed ; I am mistaken in 
him ; he is not the man of God I took him for ; — this, 
but for her faith and patience, is what she had done. 
But she was too bent on having her prayers answered ; 
she had too much at stake ; she believed too well of 
Christ to do so to be silenced by his silence. Teaching 
us what to believe concerning him, and continuing in 
prayer, and, knocking till the door is opened, how to 
make our hand heard on the gate of heaven above its 
harps and loudest songs, she perseveres. See, she rises, 
but it is to run after him ; " faint, yet pursuing," to 
resume and repeat the cry, Lord, thou son of David, 
have mercy on me ; my daughter is grievously vexed 
with a devil. 



188 



THE CHRISTIAN'S FAITH. 



2. His apparent refusal. 

No more than a drowning man who clings to a swinv 
mer will this woman be shaken off. She hangs on his 
steps the most importunate of beggars. Would to God 
we were as much so ! 

Pursuing them with incessant cries of Son of David, 
nave mercy on me : son of David have mercy on me : 
my daughter is grievously vexed with a devil ? she be- 
comes an annoyance to his disciples. There is no talk- 
ing or walking with any comfort for this woman ; and 
for the same reason, I fancy, which often leads people 
to give charity, the disciples espoused her cause to get 
rid of her. Send her away, they said ; relieve us of 
her presence ; grant her what she asks, and be done 
with her, for " she crieth after us." Quick of hearing, 
as this falls on her ear, her hopes begin to rise. Paul 
rejoiced that others preached Christ, though from con- 
tention ; and is she not pleased to have the disciples 
become her advocates, though from no friendly motives ? 
Apparently moved by their solicitations, Jesus turns 
to look on her, and is about to speak. Her heart is 
ready to leap with joy. Alas ! she is but lifted up, as 
is his antagonist by some strong wrestler, to suffer the 
heavier fall. He had answered her not a word, but 
now he speaks ; and like the thunder-peal that bursts 
on the deep stillness which precedes the storm, his 
words are worse than his silence — falling on her hopes 
like lightning on a tree that, holding up its arms to 
heaven for dews and rains, gets fire and thunderbolts 
to blast them. Casting a glance on her, he said, I am 
not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of 



THE CHRISTIAN'S FAITH. 



189 



Israel ; aL 3 saying so. he passed on. She lies stunned 
by the sudden blow — poor mother, struck to the 
ground. 

Shall she venture once more ; or, abandoning sweet 
hope, yield herself up to despair, and leave her poor 
child to be forever possessed of this devil ? It is diffi- 
cult, under any circumstances, to quench hope in a 
mother's heart — it burns there long after it is extin- 
guished in every other bosom ; and where the welfare 
of a child is concerned, I have seen it cling like green 
ivy to the crumbling ruins of health or character. 
And nobly did this woman vindicate a mother's love ; 
and by her faith put honour on the love of Jesus. 
Clinging with one hand to her daughter, see how she 
stretches the other out to Christ ; by her attitude and 
action, saying, I know, and am as sure that you have 
not the heart to refuse, as that you have the power to 
help me ! What an example of faith ! What a lesson 
to continue in prayer, when in our own salvation or that 
of others, the object of our desires, and wishes, and 
supplications is certainly agreeable to the will of God ; 
to pray without ceasing ; " with faith, nothing waver- 
ing." " 

3. His apparent reproach of her. 

" Is this Naomi ?" cried the people of Bethlehem, 
when she who had gone forth with wealth, a husband 
and two gallant sons, came back, bent and grey, sad 
and sorrowful, attired in the threadbare garb of pov- 
erty and the weeds of a widow. Can it be ? Is this 
Naomi ? And we had not been greatly astonished if 
this poor woman, when these words> " It is not meet 



190 



THE CHRISTIAN'S FAITH. 



to take the children's bread and give it to the dogs ?" 
fell harshly on her ear, had, like one that has received 
an electric shock, sprung from the ground where she 
knelt, with clasped hands and streaming eyes, to cry, 
Is this — can this be Jesus Christ ? Is that not to be 
doubted ? — then, Have my ears deceived me ? Poor 
mother ! That was a strange blow from the hand 
which was to bleed on Calvary for the chief of sin- 
ners ; and bind up the broken-hearted — not break the 
bruised reed, nor quenching the smoking flax. In truth 
it was time for her to pray, Lord, help me ! — high time, 
poor soul, for God to help thee. And he did it ; and 
fulfilled to her, as he will to all who seek him in their 
hour of extremity, his promise, As thy day is, so shall 
thy strength be. If I, said one, saw Christ on the 
other bank, and between him and me a river of rolling 
fire, I would plunge in to reach him ; and I, said ano- 
ther, would fling myself on Christ, though he stood 
with a drawn sword in his hand to receive me on its 
naked point. Such faith was this woman's — her confi- 
dence a perfect illustration of Job's grand, brave 
words. Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him. 
As the eagle, rising on the tempest that beats down 
birds of feeble wing, and sends them to roost in covert 
of bush and rock, flies highest in the storm, so did 
she. With holy skill as well as power, she seizes on 
our Lord's figure ; and turning it to her own advan- 
tage, instantly replies, Truth, Lord ; yet the dogs eat 
of the crumbs that fall from their master's table. 

His purpose, which was a gracious one all along, is 
now gained. He had sought to draw her out ; and 



THE CHRISTIAN^ FAITH. 



191 



bring forth that latent faith, the language of which 
was music to his ear — gratifying the longings of his 
loving heart, and glorifying the power and grace of 
God. That purpose gained, he drops the mantle. And 
now he reveals himself to her, as he shall to all who 
will not let him go until he bless them — crowning hei 
faith with the gracious answer, " woman, great is 
thy faith ; be it unto thee even as thou wilt." 

Happy woman! many exclaim. I wish, they say, 
my faith were great — would not I give all the world 
to feel that I had a firm hold on Christ, and that 
my feet were standing on the Rock of Ages ; with 
much coldness and deadness, with many cares, doubts, 
and fears, my faith, alas ! is not great ; there is noth- 
ing great belonging to me but my sins ; they indeed 
are great ; like mountains great, " my trespass has 
grown up unto the heavens." Well, who thus be- 
moans himself as Ezra or Ephraim did, is not singular. 
God only knows in any assembly of worshippers who 
is, or has been the chief of sinners. But the ques- 
tion, Lord, is it I? will not be left to the impure 
lips of harlots and publicans ; since those who best 
know their own hearts, know much more ill of them- 
selves than they can possibly do of others, will be the 
readiest to confess, Lord, it is I ; and to regard them- 
selves, not others, as the greatest wonder of saving 
grace. 

When knees are feeble, and hands hang down, and 
a sense of guilt lies heavy on the heart, let God's 
people remember, that if their faith is not great while 
their sins are, there is another thing great besides. 



192 



THE CHRISTIAN'S FAITH 



The term great that describes our sins, still better 
describes our Saviour. He is greater to save than 
these are to condemn. What though, as Ezra says, 
our iniquities are increased over our heads, and our 
trespasses grown up unto the heavens, — in Jesus 
"mercy is great above the heavens." Finding it to 
be illimitable, infinite, rising far above the highest 
guilt, fancy flies back on happy wing, to use the lan- 
guage of an enrapt apostle ; and seated on a branch 
of the tree of life, while angels stop their harps to 
listen, she sweetly sings of the height, and the depth, 
and the breadth, and the length of the love of God 
that passeth knowledge. The believer's hope does not 
rest in any degree on the greatness of his faith, but in 
the greatness of him who is its object. Therefore, let 
us blnss God that, though our faith is deficient, our 
Saviour is all-sufficient, and that Jesus Christ made 
unto us wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and re- 
demption — we are complete in him. If we have not 
this woman's faith, thank God we have her Lord ; if 
we have not the same voice to pray, thank God we 
have the same ear to pray to. Peter's safety on his 
return to the boat lay not in the hold he had of 
Christ, but in the hold Christ had of him ; and though 
pale terror sat on his face, this poor half-drowned 
man was safer with Christ's arm around him than 
when, stout of heart and bold in step, he planted his 
foot on the swelling billows — the admiration and 
envy of his fellows. 

ye of little faith, be comforted ! A little faith is 
a great power — equal to the task of casting a moun- 



THE CHRISTIAN'S FAITH, 193 

tain of sins into the sea of mercy ; and a slight but 
true, is a saving faith. Immortal seed, it is the nature 
of faith not to die, but live ; not to decline, but to 
grow. What though it be obscure and feeble ? All 
hail to the smoke that curls up, presage of the blazing 
flame ; to the feeblest dawn that glimmers in the east, 
forerunner of the coming day. "He which hath 
begun a good work in you, will perform it until the 
iay of Jesus Christ." 
9 



w woman, great is thv faith." — Matt. xv. 28. 

" Give strong drink unto him that is ready *e 
-^rish, and wine unto those that be of heavy hearts," 
so says the Bible ; and out of what story can there be 
extracted stronger drink or better wine, than that of 
the woman of Canaan ? Nor is hers a singular case. 
Give us time, and from the Bible alone, I could gather 
of such cases a cluster, like that which the dusty spies 
brought from the land of Canaan, and the purple vine- 
yards of Eshcol. A case that illustrates the freeness 
and the fulness of grace, this is but one star in a 
brilliant constellation. 

To confine our attention to a single class of them, 
that of sainted women, look at our Lord's genealogy 
as given by the Evangelist Matthew! From Eve 
onward to Mary but four women are named whose 
blood flowed in Jesus 7 veins ; and how curious, to say 
the least of it, that God puts into this honourable roll 
the very four that many, and certainly a Jew, cherish- 
ing the pride of ancestry, would have kept out— an 
incestuous person, a harlot, an adultress, and one of 
the cursed race of Moab. Had the list professed to 
be a catalogue of the mothers from whom Jesus 

(194) 



THE CHRISTIANAS FAITH. 



195 



sprung, Truth, with her impartial pen, must have in- 
serted, besides the name of Ruth, the names of 
Tamar and Rahab, and Bathsheba, blushing as she 
wrote them. But these are brought in apparently 
without occasion ; for the list is that of our Lord's 
male, not female, ancestors. The family tree would 
have stood complete in all its branches without them. 
What explanation have we to offer of this ? Why 
are the very women specially, and, indeed, only men- 
tioned, whose antecedents were such as to reflect no 
honour, but in the world's judgment, rather discredit 
>on the Saviour ? This is what a hostile biographer 
would have done ; and are we to account for it as for 
the appearance of tares among the wheat by saying, 
An enemy hath done this? Assuredly not. The 
record proceeds from the pen of a disciple, and was 
written by the penman as he was moved by the Holy 
Ghost. 

The truth is, that hope hangs nowhere more within 
*he reach of sinners than on these branches that pride 
would lop off — there, the lowliest penitent, the vilest 
wretch who writhes like a crushed worm in the dust, 
may pluck the fruit of the tree of life. These names 
awanting, we should have wanted one of the most re- 
markable proofs that the honours of the heavenly king- 
dom are bestowed on the dishonourable ; and that the 
graces of salvation, given without respect of persons 
or regard to merit, are free as the winds of heaven. 
To find Tamar, and Rahab, and Bathsheba in the same 
roll with such grand saints as Abraham, and Jacob, 
and the sweet singer of Israel, relieves our fears and 



196 



THE CHRISTIAN'S FAITH. 



sustains our hopes. Some Sabbaths ago, on returning 
from church, I saw a little bird seated on a leafless 
dpray of lilac ; and as he sat there with red throbbing 
breast, and his large, bright, golden eye turned on the 
setting sun, he sung most beautifully a carol of the 
spring ; and to my ear his notes fashioned themselves 
into the words of a song that celebrates the departure 
of gloomy winter, and how soft the " westlin breezes n 
blow. And to my fancy these women in the roll of the 
ancestry of the Saviour of the world, the Prince of life, 
and the Lord of glory, speak hope to us. Give them 
speech, and they say, If Jesus was not ashamed of us, 
neither will he be of you ; fear not ; he who was not 
ashamed to own us as his mothers, will not be ashamed 
to call you his sisters and his brethren. 

Once on a time our Lord said, " I tell you of a truth, 
many widows were in Israel in the days of Elias ; but 
jato none of them was Elias sent, save unto Sarepta, 
a city of Sidon, unto a woman that was a widow. 
And many lepers were in Israel in the time of Elisha 
the prophet ; and none of them was cleansed, save Na- 
aman the Syrian." These words of grace had hardly 
left his lips, when the audience, starting to their feet, 
left their seats ; and, incensed, infuriated, made a rush 
at the pulpit. Plucking the speaker down, they drag- 
ged him forth ; cast him out of the synagogue ; and, 
pouring in angry tide along the streets, thrust him out 
of their city. For the mercy and grace indicated in 
that declaration, we welcome Jesus to our assemblies ; 
and, as the trumpets of salvation sound the King's ad- 
vance, we throw the doors wide open — crying to them, 



THE CHRISTIAN'S FAITH. 



197 



u Lift up your heads, ye gates ; and be ye lifted up, 
ye everlasting doors ; and the King of glory shall 
come in and crying to him, " Hosanna to the son of 
David, hosanna in the highest, blessed be he that com- 
eth in the name of the Lord." Unless pardon is be- 
stowed on the guiltiest, and honours crown the vilest 
head ; unless men are chosen to eternal life, not out of 
regard to merit, but of the freest mercy ; unless they 
that are far away are brought nigh by the blood of 
Christ ; unless the dogs, so to speak, may not only 
crawl under the table, and eat the crusts and crumbs 
of the floor, but, transformed into men, may sit down 
and eat of the children's bread, what hope fbr us ? 
" What dost thou here, Elijah ? " Thanks to God for 
this blessed story ! Woman of Canaan, bright star of 
the East, lead on ! We follow thee, beautiful Exem- 
plar of faith, — thy success assuring us that none come 
in vain to Jesus who go with thy earnest heart, thy 
frank confession, and thy touching plea, Truth, Lord, 
yet the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their mas- 
ter's table. In further meditation on this case, con- 
sider, 

I. Her humble confession. 

I believe in the dignity of human nature. Like an 
old roofless temple, man is a grand and solemn ruin, on 
the front of which we can still trace the mutilated in- 
scription of his original dedication to God. " Thou 
hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast 
crowned him with glory and honour ;" — and there are 
points of view from which an angel of heaven may re- 



j 



198 



THE CHRISTIAN'S FAITH. 



gard us as occupying a position but a little lower than 
his own ; as the next link in the chain of creation ; as 
raised to a platform where our heads, are, at least, on 
a level with his feet. We enter the study of a Gali- 
leo or a Newton — to see, in such a philosopher, the 
dignity of human nature. Image of his Maker, he is 
holding converse with the heavens ; measuring the dis- 
tance between star and star ; following the comet on 
its fiery track ; weighing not hills only, but worlds in 
scales, suns and planets in his balance. Leaving these 
scenes of calm and lofty thought, there, where man, 
subduing the elements to his will, binds fire and water 
to his wheels ; makes the forked lightning his messen- 
ger ; compels the stubborn earth to supply his table, 
and the worms to spin his dress ; and, spreading his 
sail to the wind, God-like, has his way on the sea, and 
his path in the mighty waters — again we see the dig- 
nity of human nature. Nor to feel our superiority, and 
justify such an expression as the " dignity of our na- 
ture," is it necessary to enter the quiet study of a 
Newton, or, amid the sounding anvils and roar of its 
machinery, the workshop of a Watt. We see it in 
that little child, that, at dewy eve, with sapling in her 
hand and her naked foot on the flowery sward, drives 
the cattle home, controlling the sulky leader of the 
herd with her infant voice, and turning him with a 
wave of her infant hand. 

But, on turning the subject round, and looking at 
the moral aspects of man, alas for the dignity of hu- 
man nature ! A bright intellect and a dark heart ; 
likeness to God in mind, and unlikeness to him i* mor 



THE CHRISTIANAS FAITH. 199 

als ; the union in one creature of the intellect of an 
angel with the passions of a beast. Nature never gave 
birth to such a monster. This is the work of sin ; not 
of God. And we have only to look at our race, at 
ourselves, in this aspect, to subscribe to the Canaan- 
ite's confession ; or to justify the language of a man 
whose piety was as transcendant as his genius, and be- 
side whom our giants are but dwarfs, who said, — I 
quote the words of David, — " I was as a beast before 
thee." 

A beast ! Of all the creatures which passed in long 
procession before Adam, take that which furnished our 
Lord with his figure of speech, and with whose habits 
we are so well acquainted. The dog is an animal 
which the Easterns hold in foul contempt, — Job saying, 
Whose fathers I would have disdained to have set 
with the dogs of my flock ; — Hazael saying, What ! is 
thy servant a dog, that he should do this great thing ? 
— Goliath saying, when the stripling advanced to meet 
him, Am I a dog that thou comest to me with staves ? 
Yet observe the dog ! Look at him as he lies there, 
with wakeful eye, on guard over his master's property ; 
ready to spring at the robber's throat ; to die of hun- 
ger rather than desert his post and betray his trust. 
How faithful ! The artist did him no more than justice 
who painted him as the emblem of fidelity ; but which 
of us has been as faithful to his God ? Look at him 
again, there where he lies, when spring has melted the 
wreaths in the corrie, stretched out in death on his 
master's corpse ; " faithful unto death his last act was 
to lick the dead man's face ; his dying moans, that 



200 the christian's faith. 

Bunk lower and lower as the frost congealed his blood 
and the snow drift gathered over them, saying, Where 
thou diest I will die, and there will I be buried. Did 
our hearts ever glow with such love to Christ ? — the 
dumb ass rebuked the prophet, but that poor, fond, dy- 
ing dog rebukes us. Look again — see how he watches 
his master's eye ; how happy a kind word, or even 
look makes him ! with what bounding, noisy, overflow- 
ing joy he hails our return ; dashing through the blithe 
group that crowds the doorway, no one's welcome is 
more hearty or more sincere. More faithful than we 
to Christ, he will not abandon his master : and, in that 
garden, where the disciples deserted Jesus and fled, he 
would have stood, and fought, and died at his feet. 
Look at him once more when his master dies ! He 
lingers beside the coffin, or walks mournfully through 
the house, seeking one he cannot find ; and when the 
family have returned from the churchyard, to part the 
dead man's estate, and, perhaps, quarrel over the spoil, 
he has stopped behind to howl over the lonely grave — 
saddest, truest mourner for the dead. 

When I look at that, and, thinking of all that a lov- 
ing God and a dying Saviour have done for us, con- 
trast with such fidelity our disobedience, our coldness, 
our base ingratitude, our great unfaithfulness, I stand 
rebuked before this dumb, devoted creature. Who 
may not say with David, I was as a beast before thee ? 
— or with Ezra, my God, I am ashamed, and blush 
to lift up my face to thee, my God ; for our iniquities 
are increased over our head, and our trespass is grown 
up unto the heavens ? — or with Job, I abhor myself, and 



THE CHRISTIANAS FAITH. 



201 



repent in dust and ashes ? — or with Jacob, I am not 
worthy of the least of all thy mercies and of all the 
truth which thou hast showed unto thy servant ?— or 
with Paul, I am less than the least of all saints ? — or 
with this humble, blessed woman, Truth, Lord, yet the 
dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their master's 
table ? 

II. Her thankfulness for the smallest mercy. 

Objects seem large or little according to the medium 
through which they are viewed. In the microscope, 
what a remarkahle change they undergo ! The humble 
moss rises into a graceful tree ; the beetle, armed for 
battle, flashes in golden or silver mail ; a grain of sand 
swells into a mass of rock ; and, on the other hand, 
a mountain, looked at through the wrong end of a tel- 
escope, sinks into a mole-hill, and the broad lake con- 
tracts into a tiny pool. Even so, according as we look 
at them, with the eyes of self-condemning humility, or 
of self-righteous pride, God's mercies seem great or 
little. For example, a minister of the gospel, passing 
one day near a cottage, was attracted to its door by 
the sound of a loud and earnest voice. It was a bare 
and lonely dwelling ; the home of a man who was 
childless, old, and poor. Drawing near this mean and 
humble cabin, the stranger at length made out these 
words, " This, and Jesus Christ too ! this, and Jesus 
Christ too ! " as they were repeated over and over in 
tones of deep emotion ; of wonder, gratitude, and 
praise. His curiosity was roused to see wh it that 
could be which called forth such fervent, overawing 
9* 



202 



THE CHRISTIANAS FAITH. 



thanks. Stealing near, he looked in at the patched 
and broken window ; and there in the form of a grey, 
bent, worn-out son of toil, at a rude table, with hands 
raised to God, and his eyes fixed on some crusts of 
bread, and a cup of water, sat piety, peace, humility, 
contentment, exclaiming, " This, and Jesus Christ to/* t" 

Such was the spirit of this woman's reply. It says 
— Lord! deserving nothing, I shall be thankful for 
anything ; to ask for myself, or poor child, such hon- 
ours as the mother of Zebedee's children sought for 
her sons ; to minister, like these favoured women, to 
thy necessities, and with these hands to supply thy 
table, or spread thy couch ; to follow thee as thy sha- 
dow ; bending to unloose the latchet of thy shoes ; to 
kneel by thy side in prayer ; like Martha and Mary to 
receive thee beneath my roof ; — these are honours I 
ask not for ; I dare not aspire to. A poor Gentile, I 
seek nothing but the crumbs of thy table — among thy 
many and mighty miracles, in pity do some little thing 
for me ; it will cost you but a word, speak that word 
and my daughter shall be healed. Save her, good 
Lord : I ask the least that I can do with. Let others 
sit at thy side, or lie in thy bosom, but grant my peti- 
tion ; and, a happy mother, I shall be content to sit in 
the dust, and sing at thy blessed feet. 

This woman is a model for Christian artists. What 
true grace and beauty in her humility ! and who that 
has been brought to a just and deep sense of his sins, 
will refuse to be content, unless he is raised to heaven's 
highest throne, and wears its brightest crown? A 
drowning man, plucked from the jaws of death, is 



THE CHRISTIAN'S FAITH. 



203 



happy with three feet of bare rock beneath him ; hap- 
pier than others with thousands of broad acres. The 
wrecked, borne shoreward in the life-boat that is mak- 
ing for the land through roaring seas and winter 
storms, are happier than Egypt's queen when the sun 
gleamed on her golden galley, and silken sails swelled 
in the summer breeze, and the world's great conqueror 
knelt, a suitor at her feet. And there is no humble 
Christian, no lover of Jesus, but is happier with the 
hope of heaven, with Christ in him " the hope of glory," 
than the men of the world when their corn and their 
wine do most abound ; and all things go well with 
them. Though a beggar, the child of God parts not 
with that hope for all the wisdom and wealth of Solo- 
mon. To get within that blessed door ; to have a 
place, not nearest the king, but on the outside of the 
circle around the throne ; to bear the lowest title 
among heaven's nobles ; to be the weakest child of 
God's family, the humblest servant in Christ's house, 
the dimmest, smallest jewel in his crown, the least, and 
less than the least, of all saints, is a hope that sets the 
heart a-singing — 

" Transported with the view I'm lost 
In wonder, love, and praise." 

EI. Her plea, she appeals to our Lord's generosity. 

It is told in the life of a great criminal, who, though 
often apprehended and tried, was never convicted, that 
he made a rule of never answering any questions, 
nor admitting anything, and thereby, as many have 



204 



THE CHRISTIANAS FAITH. 



done, committing himself. While others, less cautious, 
paid the penalty of the law, he thus escaped the gal- 
lows ; and died in his bed. One would think that sin- 
ners expect by not admitting their guilt to elude also 
the justice and the judgment of God. They do not 
admit that they are sinners ; or if sinners, they do not 
admit that they are great sinners. On the contrary, 
like the Pharisee of old, they thank God that they are 
not as others are — not they! Guilt meets no pity 
at their hands ; to save it, they would not touch it. 
" It is monstrous to be told " — wrote a lady of this 
school to the Countess of Huntingdon, when finding 
fault with George Whitefield's style of preaching—" it 
is monstrous to be told that you have a heart as sinful 
as the common wretches that crawl on the earth ; and 
I cannot but wonder that your ladyship should relish 
any sentiments so much at variance with high rank and 
good breeding ; their doctrines are most repulsive, and 
strongly tinctured with disrespect toward their superi- 
ors, in perpetually endeavouring to level all ranks, and 
do away with all distinctions." 

What darkness ! Miserable, fatal ignorance ! Who 
would not rather have their soul bound up in the same 
bundle with the poorest Magdalene, that stands weep- 
ing, trembling, timidly knocking at the gate of heaven, 
than with this haughty dame who, pushing the poor 
penitent aside, ruffles up to it — as if obsequious porters 
would throw it open at her appearance ? How differ- 
ent the spirit of the Canaanite ! This woman in that 
word " truth," as Mary did by the tears that washed 
the dust from Jesus' feet, puts in a plea of guilty ; un- 



THE CHRISTIAN^ FAITH. 



205 



clean ; unworthy. Catching at the word and figure 
which our Lord uses, and casting herself on his gene- 
rosity, she says, Yet surely you will treat me as kindly 
as a man treats his dog. Blessed humility! happy 
thought ! touching, irresistible appeal ! 

Now, her plea is as good as ever. We have no 
other ; and, thank God, we need no other. By the 
voice of our conscience or of his word, does God say, 
You have been a sinner ! We reply, Truth, Lord. — 
There is no commandment of mine you have not bro- 
ken, nor mercy of mine you have not abused ! Truth 
Lord. — You have crucified my Son ! Truth, Lord. — 
You have grieved my Spirit ! Truth, Lord. — You de- 
serve to be cast into hell! Truth, Lord. — Into the 
deepest, hottest hell ! Truth, Lord. It is all true ; 
but, God of mercy ! so is this, that thou never saidst 
to any of the sons of men, Seek ye my face in vain ; 
that thou art not willing that any man should perish ; 
that thou hast no pleasure in the death of the wicked ; 
that thou didst send thy Son to seek and to save the 
lost ; that the blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth from all 
sin. The woman was successful, why should not we ? 
We will hope in thy mercy, for is it not written, The 
Lord taketh pleasure in them that fear him, in those 
that hope in his mercy ? 

The woman's plea good as ever ? It is better than 
ever. We can go with more freeness and boldness 
than she to the throne of grace. " Dog," that harsh 
sounding word, is blotted from the Bible. Since Jesus 
died, the differences between Jew and Gentile abolish- 
ed, his lips have never said " dog." Sent to save in 



206 



THE CHRISTIANAS FAITH. 



his own day only the lost sheep of the house of Israel, 
with Jews for the objects of his mercy, and the Holy 
Land for the orbit of his mission, here our Lord in a 
sense, exceeded his commission. To save this poor, 
struggling, sinking creature, he overleaped the barriers 
of ancient covenants ; and taking time by the forelock, 
anticipated the hour when there should be neither Jew 
nor Greek, nor bond nor free. How great the Canaan- 
ite's happiness had been if, in reply to disciples, who 
said, Send her away, he had answered, No, I will not 
send her away ; why should I ? it is to her, and to such 
as her, that I am sent. At such words how had the 
blood rushed to her palid cheek ; how had her heart 
palpitated with joy ; throwing herself at Jesus' feet, 
as she clasped and kissed them, now confident of get- 
ting all she asked, how had she mingled praises with 
her prayers ! But what in that case had been her posi- 
tion, is ours now. We have not to pursue a departing 
Saviour ; nor has our distress to address itself to an 
ear that seems deaf to pity. Jesus is passing ; but not 
now silent, reserved, and wrapt in thought of other 
objects than us. No. He stops ; he looks kindly on 
us ; he pities us ; he loves us ; and, opening his arms 
he invites us to his bosom. Throned on the mercy- 
seat, with all power given him in earth and heaven, see 
how he stretches out the golden sceptre, saying to every 
suppliant, What is thy request, and what is thy petition, 
and it shall be granted thee ? 



14 They continued steadfastly .... in prayers." — Acts ii. 42. 

The water is purest at its fountain among the moun- 
tains, where it gushes cold from the rock, or bubbles 
up at the mossy spring ; the nearer to the source the 
clearer is the stream. By every mile it rolls, it grows 
in volume ; till the streamlet which a child could leap, 
fed by many tributaries, has swollen into a broad river, 
on whose bosom, as it nears the sea, fishermen shoot 
their nets, and the ships of nations ride. But what 
the water has acquired in depth and breadth, it has 
lost in purity j growing the muddier, the further it 
goes. How like to what happens in Churches ; — 
which as they become larger, usually become more 
loose in doctrine and more lax in discipline. With an 
increase of numbers, they often present such an in- 
crease of corruptions, that to find the purest days of 
many a sect, we must turn our steps backward to the 
period of its rise. 

In some respects this is true even of the Christian 
Church. When young in years and small in numbers, 
and poor in point of wealth, what love, unity, purity, 
and peace, dwelt within her walls ! Since then how 
have these walls been shaken by the violence, and filled 

(201) 



208 



THE CHRISTIAN S PRAYERS. 



with the din of controversies ! Here one sect carrying 
on fierce war against another ; and there intestine wars 
— two parties contending within the same body, and 
more like wolves than sheep, worrying, " biting, and 
devouring " one another. Suppose an inhabitant of 
another sphere to alight on this one! He sees the 
Church of Christ rent into jealous, envious, angry, 
hostile factions ; and finds them, instead of presenting 
one bold front to the common enemy, burying their 
swords in each other's bosoms. How difficult it were 
for him to believe that they were subjects of one King ; 
had a common faith, a common cross, a common Bible, 
a common hope, a common heaven ; and that the 
choicest title of their Sovereign was not the god of 
war, but the Prince of Peace. Once the heathens 
said, See how these Christians love one another ! They 
say it no more. And we cannot contrast what the 
Church is now, and has been for bygone ages, with 
the purity and peace of her early days, without being 
ready to cry, How are the mighty fallen ; the weapons 
of war how are they perished ! — How is the gold be- 
come dim, how is the most fine told changed ! 



What a picture of Christian unity, love, self-denial, 
mutual affection, devotedness to each other's welfare, 
and to the great interests of Messiah's kingdom, is 
offered to our admiration in the verses that follow the 
text — in that community of goods which sanguine poli' 
ticians have often dreamed of, but Christians only have 
ever attained to ! In those days the Church of Christ 
was like one large, loving family, to whose common 
treasury each member brought his wealth and wages. 




THE CHRISTIANAS PRAYERS. 209 

Nobody was immensely rich. ; and none were miserably 
poor. Riches and rags, splendour and squalidness, did 
not stand in incongruous conjunction ; and worship, as 
I have seen them, under the same roof, or sit side by 
side at the same communion-table. As all the rivers 
of the earth pour their waters into one sea, and all the 
roots of a tree convey their nourishment to one stem, 
and all the veins of the body empty themselves into 
one heart, from which the tide of blood, borne along 
the bounding arteries, is sent forth again to be dis- 
tributed to every member according to its needs — so 
was it in primitive times with the wealth of those who 
constituted the Church, the body of Christ. What 
states have been in name, it was in fact — a common- 
wealth ; and the only one the world ever saw. The 
people lived for Christ ; regarding their possessions as 
his, not their own. They judged that as a man who 
buys land, buys all belonging to it — the trees that 
grow on its surface, and the minerals that lie in its 
bowels — so, when Christ bought them with his blood, 
with them he bought all that was theirs. They felt 
that if Christ gave his life for the poorest saints, they 
could not do less than share their " means and sub- 
stance " with them ; and so, as we are told — They 
who believed were together, and had all things in. 
common, and sold their possessions and goods, and 
parted them to all men, as every man had need. 

There was no command laid on them to do so ; nor 
does any command lie on us to imitate their example 
in this matter. Such a practice would now be as un- 
desirable, as it is impracticable. Still, though their 



210 



THE CHRISTIAN'S PRAYERS. 



circumstances were so peculiar as to lead them to 
adopt a peculiar line of conduct, how ought their con* 
duct — the spirit of their example, and, to adduce a 
still higher authority, how ought the example of 
Christ, who, with his disciples, had a common purse, 
to call forth our charity to God's poor saints ; teach- 
ing us to fill their scanty cups with the overflowings 
of our own. 

There is, however, one marked feature of that early 
Church recorded in these verses, which we may safely 
copy, and are indeed called to copy. In their stead- 
fastness in prayer, they set us an example that we 
should follow their steps. Who does not know that 
to grow the same fruit as others — crops as fine in 
quality and abundant in quantity, we must apply the 
same culture to ground or tree? I have seen, for 
example, two plants growing under the glass of the 
same conservatory ; and while the one showed a mass 
of flowers that dazzled the eye with their beauty, and 
filled the whole house with their perfume, the others, 
fruitless and flowerless, hung its drooping leaves, and 
seemed pining to death, under a deep decline. Both 
stood in the same soil ; enjoyed an equal temperature ; 
and had been taken from one, common parent stem. 
Whence the difference? The cause of that was 
neither obscure nor remote — this had been often, but 
that, neglected, had been seldom watered. Now, 
what water is to thirsty plants, prayer is to the 
graces of a man, or a Church. Do we admire, won- 
der, and sometimes indeed, stand astonished at the 
love which animated and the fruitfulness which dis- 



THE CHRISTIAN'S PRAYERS. 



211 



tinguished these first Christians ? The riddle is read, 
the mystery solved, in these words, " They continued 
steadfast in prayers." 

I. Their employment — prayer. 

A refuge in trouble, our strength in weakness, our 
armour in battle, our comfort in sorrow, the wings by 
which we rise to God, a ladder for our feet in climb- 
ing the skies, prayer is the first sign of conversion. 
It is the birth-cry of a soul — like that cry in the natal 
chamber, by which the mother knows her new-born 
child is alive. The penitent thief was converted on 
the cross ; and the first intimation the world had that 
he who but an hour ago was mocking our dying Lord 
had become another man, was to see him turning 
round on the nails to cry, Lord, remember me when 
thou eomest to thy kingdom. The jailer, nor he the 
only man born again in such a place — was converted 
in the prison ; and the first intimation Paul and Silas 
had of his change was when he cast away the sword, 
and, calling for a light, sprang into the dungeon, to 
fall on his knees, and cry, Sirs, what shall I do to be 
saved ? Paul himself, like a vagrant's child, was 
born on the public road, struck down, converted on 
his way to Damascus ; and the change was announced 
to Ananias in these words, Behold, he prayeth. Pray- 
eth ! and it is of such prayers I speak, of true prayers 
— not those of the lip, but of the heart ; for no 
arrows reach yonder sky but those that are shot from 
heart-strings, when the soul is strongly bent like an 
elastic bow. A man may say his prayers — say them 



212 THE CHRISTIAN'S PRAYERS. 

from lisping infancy to toothless, mumbling age, from 
his cradle to his coffin, yet never once have prayed. 

The first, true sign of spiritual life, prayer is also 
the means of maintaining it. Man can as well live 
physically without breathing, as spiritually without 
praying. There is a class of animals — the cetaceous, 
neither fish nor sea-fowl, that inhabit the deep. It 
is their home ; they never leave it for the shore ; 
yet, though swimming beneath its waves and sounding 
its darkest depths, they have ever and anon to rise to 
the surface that they may breathe the air. Without 
that these monarchs of the deep could not exist in the 
dense element in which they live, and move, and have 
their being. And something like what is imposed on 
them by a physical necessity, the Christian has to do 
by a spiritual one. It is by ever and anon ascending 
up to God, by rising through prayer into a loftier, 
purer region for supplies of divine grace, that he 
maintains his spiritual life. Prevent these animals 
from rising to the surface, and they die for want of 
breath ; prevent him from rising to God, and he dies 
for want of prayer. " Give me children," cried Rachel, 
" or else I die f Let me breathe, said a man gasping, 
or else I die ; Let me pray, says the Christian, or else 
I die? 

" Now," writes Paul, " abideth faith, hope, charity, 
but the greatest of these is charity f and the fair 
crown he puts on charity, we may place on the bended 
head of prayer. Among all the means of grace — ser- 
mons, sacraments, Sabbaths, providences, God's word, 
either read or preached — the greatest in some re- 



THE CHRISTIAN'S PRAYERS. 



213 



spects is prayer. Nor men nor devils can shut its 
gates. When every other avenue to God is closed, 
these stand open — day and night continually. The 
storm of persecution may drive us from the house of 
God : the voice of preachers may be silenced in pris- 
ons ; the Church may excommunicate and debar us 
from the communion table ; the Bible plucked from 
our hands, may be burned to ashes in Popish flames ; 
all this has happened, and may happen again. These 
are avenues which man may close ; not this, the door 
of prayer. The martyr found it standing open in his 
dungeon ; Daniel in the den of lions ; the three chil- 
dren in the fiery furnace ; Jonah in the belly of the 
whale ; Paul and Silas in the prison, where their feet 
were in the stocks, but their spirits were free ; and 
when his brow is clammy cold, and his eyes are glazed 
and dim, and his ear has lost its hearing, and his 
tongue its powers of speech, the moving lips, and up- 
rifted hands tell the by-standers at a Christian's death- 
bed that the gates of prayer stand open. Prayer and 
d good man part only at the door of heaven ; there 
toeing a breath, a groan, a sigh, between earth's prayers 
t»nd its eternal praise. He rises from the footstool of 
tviercy to receive the crown, and ascend a throne. 

II. Their perseverance in this exercise — they continued 
steadfastly in prayers. 

Prayers which are not answered at once, nor, per- 
haps, for a long time afterwards, may nevertheless be 
accepted. Were he to speak, Christ's reply to a moth- 
er, earnest ind urgent for a son's ^oavcrs;on, might be 



214 the christian's prayers. 



such as he gave his own mother at the marriage in 
Cana, Woman, mine hour is not yet come. Now, 
God's people are apt to forget this ; and that it is 
with prayer, to borrow an illustration from commer- 
cial transactions, as with a bill, which, though ac- 
cepted, is often not paid till months or years elapse. 
Our heavenly Father knows best what to give ; and 
also how, and where, and when to give. Were its an- 
swer always to follow prayer, as the peal roars upon 
the flash, I suspect that we would be as ready in spirit- 
ual as we are in earthly matters to look only to second- 
ary causes, and forget God's hand — coming to look on 
our prayers as being the cause of the answer, as much 
as we are iu the habit of regarding the flash of light- 
ning, without any reference to God, as the cause of the 
peal of thunder. 

Besides, if the answer were always to follow on the 
prayer, the grand ends of God's providence would 
often be defeated. Let me illustrate this by the case 
of the prodigal. It so happened that this profligate 
youth was deeply impressed with a sense of bad, un- 
filial conduct. How touchingly is that brought out in 
this soliloquy, " I will arise and go to my father, and 
say to him, Father, I have sinned against heaven and 
in thy sight, and am not worthy to be called thy son ; 
make me as one of thy hired servants." But suppose 
it had been otherwise, and that by report, or by his 
bold bearing and sullen look, his father knew it to be 
otherwise, would he have run to meet him ? Would 
he have kissed his cheek ? Would he, anticipating his 
wishes, have granted forgiveness before it was asked ? 



THE CHRISTIAN'S PRAYEB8. 



215 



Would he, in the fulness of a father's joy, the gush of 
long pent up feelings, as co anting nothing too good 
for him, have cried for the fairest robe ; bidden music 
wake up, and wine flow, and floors shake to the danc- 
ers' feet ? Would he, taking him to his bosom and re- 
storing him to the place of a son both in his heart and 
home, have done exceeding abundantly above all that 
he could ask or think ? Certainly not. If the prodi- 
gal, though somewhat, had not been fully, sensible of 
his sin, the father would have pursued a different 
course. God cures souls as we cure bodies, and often 
wounds to heal. And, in the case supposed, this father 
in whose portrait Jesus drew an attractive picture of 
his own, would have turned his back on his son at the 
very time his heart was turning to him. Restraining 
feelings that struggled to get forth, he would have re- 
ceived him coldly, that he might humble his pride, and 
fit him to receive future favours. See how David 
dealt with Absalom ! To say nothing of those that 
heard it, who ever read that doleful cry, " my son 
Absalom, my son, my son Absalom, would God I had 
died for thee, Absalom, my son, my son," without 
feeling that David was as tender in heart, as he was 
true to friendship, and brave in battle, and pious to- 
ward God. Yet when his heart was breaking for the 
love of his first-born, see how he allowed him to stay 
for two whole years in Jerusalem — sternly refusing to 
see his face. Or look at Joseph's conduct to his breth- 
ren ! He yearned to make himself known to them ; 
and had forgiven all their crimes so soon as he saw 
their faces. Yet he dealt harshly with them ; spoke 



216 



THE CHRISTIAN'S PRAYERS. 



roughly to them ; called them spies ; cast them into 
prison. Nor till conscience, long asleep, but now woke 
by this rough hand, reproached them and taught them 
to reproach themselves, saying, We are very guilty 
concerning our brother, in that we saw the anguish of 
his soul when he besought us, and we would not hear ; 
therefore is this distress come upon us — not till then 
did he drop the mask, and cry with a look that pro- 
claimed their pardon, I am Joseph ! Even so, to deep- 
en the humility of those that seek him, to try their 
patience, to quicken their patience, to call forth their 
faith, to fire their ardour, and blow the smoking flax 
into a burning flame, Jesus, when his heart is overflow- 
ing with tenderness, may for a while refuse prayer her 
answer — hide himself, nor say, I am Jesus. 

And when we pray, but receive no answer, and put- 
ting our ear to the door, where we have been knocking, 
as if the house were untenanted, we catch no approach- 
ing footstep, nor sound, nor sign of any one being 
within, what are we to do ? To cease praying ? Cease 
praying ! By no means. No more than I would cease 
swimming for dear life when the cruel wave had pluck- 
ed my hands from the rock, or, after my feet had 
touched the blessed sands, bore me back again and out 
to sea. I am to knock and listen ; to stand and wait ; 
and, importunate as the widow, take no rest and give 
God none, till the door is opened. Do this for what 
his word teaches you is agreeable to his will, and if 
the answer does not come when you are living, you 
shall get it when you are dead. In prayers, or curses, 
men sow what afterwards grow above their graves. 



THE CHRISTIAN'S PRAYERS. 217 

It is eighteen hundred years since Jesus prayed, I will 
that those whom thou hast given me be with me where 
I am ; and that prayer is answered in every chamber 
from which a dying saint takes his flight to glory. It 
is eighteen hundred years since they cried, His blood 
be on us and on our children ; and God is answering 
that curse now in a people scattered, and peeled ; a 
hissing ; a byword ; and a proverb in all the earth. 

Let faith and hope hold up the arms of prayer, till, 
paralyzed by death, they drop powerless at your side. 
Many a pious parent has wrestled with God for an un- 
godly son j nor got his answer until he had left the 
earth and been years in heaven. One day its door is 
thrown open. He looks round to see who comes in — 
there is his son ! The father leaves his throne to rush 
into his arms ; they embrace ; and Jesus, seeing of the 
travail of his soul, and rejoicing over this trophy of his 
cross, hears in heaven that outburst of paternal joy, 
" My son that was dead is alive again, that was lost is 
found." 

III. The fruit of prayer. 

The preacher stands up before his audience to pro- 
claim salvation, and offer pardon to the guilty — to the 
guiltiest, by the blood of Jesus. By all that is sacred 
and holy, by all that is tender and terrible, by love to 
God and regard to themselves, he urges on them its 
cordial and immediate acceptance. Yet how often do 
the vacant eyes, and unmoved demeanour of hearers — 
so unlike persons under sentence of death getting tid- 
ings of a pardon — remind him of the question, Shall 
10 



218 



THE CHRISTIAN'S PRAYERS. 



horses run upon the rock, shall a man plough ther e 
with oxen? A very profitless field! Time, besides 
shedding snows on our head, draws furrows on our 
brow ; but it is not over bald mountain brows that the 
husbandman guides his plough. Cultivating the soil 
of the valley, he leaves the rocky summits to the eagle, 
to mists and clouds and roaring tempests. 

Bolder than he, the preacher of the gospel casts the 
seed of the word on stony hearts. Why not ? Has 
not God encouraged him ; saying, Is not my word a 
fire and hammer to break the stone in pieces ? Yet, 
alas ! how often does the result of his most solemn, 
most startling, most searching appeals but shew that 
he has run his horse on a rock, and ploughed there with 
oxen ! — the only feeling elicited, temporary — like the 
the spark which the horse's hoof strikes from the rock ; 
dying the instant of its birth. 

It is one thing, however, to address our speech to 
men, and another and much more hopeful thing to 
speak to God. In other words, it is one thing to 
preach, and an entirely different thing to pray. For 
who prays, never runs his horses on a rock, nor ploughs 
there with oxen. When the season has been cold and 
backward, when rains fell and prices rose, and farmers 
desponded and the poor despaired, I have heard old 
people, whose hopes, resting on God's promise, did not 
rise and fall with the barometer, nor shift with shift- 
ing winds, say, We shall have harvest after all ; and 
this you can safely say of the labours and fruits of 
prayer. The answer may be long in coming— years 
may elapse before the bread we have cast on the waters 



THE CHRISTIANAS PRAYERS. 219 



eomes back ; but if the vision tarry, wait for it ! Why 
not ? We know that some seeds spring so soon almost 
as they are committed to the ground ; but others lie 
buried for months ; nor, in some cases, it is till years 
elapse that they germinate and rise, to teach us that 
what is dormant is not dead. Such it may be with 
prayer. Ere that immortal seed has sprung, the hand 
that planted it may be mouldering in the dust — the 
seal of death on the lips that prayed. But though 
you are not spared to reap the harvest, your prayers 
are not lost. They bide their time, God's " set time." 
For in one form or another, in this world or in the 
next, who sows in tears shall reap in joy. The God 
who puts his people's tears into his bottle, will certainly 
never forget their prayers. 

Consider what honour has God put on prayer ! The 
question is not, What can it do ? but, What has it not 
done ? Has it not divided the sea ; quenched the vio- 
lence of fire ; shut the mouths of lions ; and opened 
the gates of Paradise ? As your finger would do to 
that clock, did it touch the pendulum, prayer has gone 
up to heaven and stopped the sun. It has gone down 
into the tomb, and brought up the dead. It has bound 
up the clouds ; and loosed them again. See the pro- 
phet's servant yonder, looking seaward, on the top of 
Carmel. He descries a speck like a white sail on the 
rim of the deep. It rises ; no bigger at first than a 
man's hand, it grows, gathers, spreads, till it covers the 
whole dark vault of heaven ; and now, with thunders 
roaring, lightning flashing, rain pouring from the skies, 
and foaming cascades leaping down the hills, the 



220 the christian's prayers. 



king lashes on his startled horses — flying before the 
tempest. Who or what wrought this welcome, sudden 
change ? The prayers of that man who, with shaggy 
robe and girt-up loins, runs by the chariot, did it — 
shattered with thunder-bolts the bottles of the sky. 
" Elias," says the apostle, " was a man subject to like 
passions as we are, and he prayed earnestly that it 
might not rain : and it rained not on the earth by the 
space of three years and six months. And he prayed 
again, and the heavens gave rain, and the earth brought 
forth her fruit." 

Are we to expect such answers now ? Well, we en- 
more, perhaps, by expecting them too little than too 
much. When the State or Church appoints days of 
prayer for rain in dry, or for drought in wet seasons, 
how few go to church with the faith of that child who 
was observed going there prepared for rain. Though 
there was no cloud in the heaven, God was there ; and 
would to God we prayed with more of the faith that 
replied to those that taunted her, and expressed sur- 
prise to see her prepared for a change of weather : 
" We are going to pray for rain, and I expect God will 
hear us, and send it." Certain it is that if we expected 
more, we should get more. Who honours God with their 
faith, he will honour with his favours ; and this is especi- 
ally true of prayers that, seeking better harvests than 
sickles reap, plead such promises as these, ' I will pour 
water upon him that is thirsty, and floods upon the dry 
ground ; I will pour my Spirit on thy seed, and my 
blessing upon thy offspring ; and they shall spring up 
as among the grass, and as willows by the water 



THE CHRISTIAN S PRAYERS. 221 



courses." Prayer is the key that unlocks the door of 
heaven — it is opened by men on their knees. 

The Spirit yields to prayer. Look at our Lord's 
baptism. Side by side John and he stand in Jordan's 
stream. He who afterwards bowed his head to deatn, 
now bows it to a servant's hand. Baptised by John — 
the greater by the less — he leaves the water ; and it 
is when on the bank, where, Luke tells us, he engaged 
in prayer, that the eyes of the spectators catch a dove- 
like object, dropping with expanded wings till it rests 
upon his head ; praying, he receives the Spirit. And 
how were the disciples engaged at Pentecost ? That 
day of days found them all in one place ; and in 
prayer. Suddenly, though no breath stirred the leaves 
of the aspen, or bent the reeds that stood in the shal- 
lows of the sleeping lake, there came a sound, as when 
the wind roars through the winter forests. Every 
man has started and raised his head in sudden alarm 
to cry, What is that ? but is struck dumb ; on every 
head is a tongue of fire — sign of the Spirit's presence, 
and the power of prayer. Once more the disciples 
are met — met like a crew on deck when their vessel, 
at the mercy of the storm, is driving on the reef. The 
church is in imminent danger. The preaching of the 
gospel is forbidden. Hanging over destruction, his 
people cry to the Lord. The kings of the earth have 
set themselves, and the rulers taken counsel together 
against the Lord and his anointed ; but he that sits in 
heaven laughs, the Lord has them in derision. Sud- 
denly when the Church in her distress is (tasting her- 
self on God, for there is no help for her in man, the 



222 the christian's prayers. 

house where she is met is struck as by a reeling earth- 
quake — feels such shock as when a ship takes the sand. 
£t rocks to its foundations ; and now they who feared 
that they and the hopes of a lost world were to be 
buried in a common ruin, find themselves filled with 
the Holy Ghost. Who would be so filled, or would 
have others filled, let him pray. " To your tents, 
Israel ! " was an old cry ; now, whether they seek their 
own or others' salvation, let it be, To your knees, 
men ! The Spirit comes to the call of prayer. 

Now is the time for it — the day ; the hour. There 
is nothing too great you may not get in this world for 
asking ; nor anything too little you shall not be refused 
in the next. Here, God gives pardon to the greatest 
sins, his saving mercy to the greatest sinners ; but 
there, the man that now rejects the cross of Christ and 
the crown of glory, shall lift up his eyes in torment — 
nor get a drop of water to cool his tongue. Seek the 
Lord, therefore, while he is to be found ; and son- 
tinue steadfastly in prayer. 



" We beseech you brethren, that ye increase more and more."— 
1 Thess. ir. 10. 

"seation, so far at least as concerns this world, has 
bvm compared to a pyramid. Beginning with the 
mineral, passing upward into the vegetable, and rising 
into the animal kingdom, we find man standing on the 
apex-— the crowning work of God. In defining the 
limits of these kingdoms, Linnaeus, the father of bot- 
any, s&ys, that " minerals grow ; that vegetables grow 
and live ; that animals grow, live, and feel." He makes 
growth common to them all ; and in older days than 
his, some held that even stones and metals, as well as 
plants and animals, spring from seed. But though cer- 
tain metals, in their native state, assume the arbores- 
cent form, and crystals increase in size, and coral for- 
ests throwing out branches like trees, rise from the bot- 
tom of the sea, yet no mineral substance can, properly 
speaking, be said to grow. Growth, that active pow- 
er by which the ox converts the green grass of the 
meadow into red flesh, and foul manures are changed 
into fragrant odours, and all plants and animals appro- 
priate to themselves such materials as are fitted to pre- 
serve their being and increase their bulk, is a property 

(223) 



224 THE christian's growth. 



that belongs to life. It is only living things that grow, 
and all living things do grow. Be it the lichen that 
clings to the rock, or the eagle that has her nest on its 
craggy shelf, or man that rends its heart with powder 
and draws the gold from its bowels — from the germ 
out of which they spring they grow onwards to matu- 
rity ; in the words of my text, they " increase more 
and more." 

These words are as true of spiritual as of natural 
life. According to heathen fables, Minerva, the god- 
dess of wisdom and daughter of Jupiter, sprung full- 
grown and full-armed from her father's head. No man 
thus comes from the hand of the Holy Spirit, in sud- 
den, mature, perfect saintship. There is nothing in 
the spiritual world which resembles this ; no, nor even 
what the natural world presents in the development of 
the insect tribes. During their last and perfect stage, 
in the condition, as it is called of the imago, be their 
life long or short, they undergo no increase. So soon 
as the green worm that once crawled on the ground 
and fed on garbage, bursting its coffin-shell, comes 
forth, a creature with silken wings, to roam in the 
sunny air, to sleep by night on a bed of flowers, and 
by day banquet on their nectar, it grows no more — 
neither larger nor wiser ; its flight and faculties being 
as perfect on the day of what may be called its new 
birth, as when, touched by early frosts or drowned in 
rain, it dies. Here, indeed, we have a symbol of the 
resurrection-body as it shall step from the tomb ; in 
beauty perfect, in growth mature ; to undergo hence- 
forth, and through eternal ages, neither change nor de- 



THE CHRISTIAN'S GROWTH. 



225 



cay. It is otherwise with the renewed soul. Before 
it, in righteousness, and knowledge, and true holiness, 
stretches a field of illimitable progress — upwards and 
onwards to what it shall be for ever approaching, yet 
never reach, the throne of God. 

Meanwhile, to confine our views only to this world, 
— who knows his shortcomings and laments them ; who 
feels with Paul that he has not yet attained, or is al- 
ready perfect ; that he is far from perfect ; that he is 
not what he ought to be, and might have been, but also 
feels how appropriate to the best of us are those words 
of exhortation, " We beseech you, brethren " — by the 
mercies of God, by the cross of Christ, by your hopes 
of heaven ; for the glory of Jesus' name, and the good 
of his Church ; for the sake of your purity, your 
peace, your joy, your fitness for heaven, and growth in 
grace, — " we beseech you that ye increase more and 
more." 

I, In what are we to increase ? 

" Thou hast multiplied the nation," says the prophet, 
" and not increased the joy." There is little or no ad- 
vantage in the increase of some things. It but increases 
our danger, and adding to our cares, lays weightier bur- 
dens on the back of life. Hear the wise man, " He that 
loveth silver shall not be satisfied with silver ; nor he 
that loveth abundance with increase." More riches 
will certainly not make us happier ; and perhaps, para- 
doxical as it sounds, they may not even make us richer. 
The expenditure grows in proportion to the increase 
of income ; and so again the wise man says, " Whers 
10* 



226 the christian's growth. 



good increase, they increase that eat them ; and what 
good is there to the owner thereof?" Good! Hear 
the wise man once more, " The sleep of a labouring 
man is sweet, but the abundance of the rich will not 
suffer him to sleep. There is a sore evil which I have 
seen under the sun ; riches kept for the owners thereof 
to their hurt." We have seen that as well as Solomon. 

Nor is the increase even of wisdom, though a higher 
and nobler pursuit, without its own drawbacks. It is 
harder to work with the brain than with the hands ; to 
hammer out thoughts than iron. Not to be acquired 
but by toil and self-denial, at the expense often of 
health, always of labour, and sometimes, as where the 
pale, emaciated student feeds his midnight lamp with 
the oil of life, at the expense of life itself, " In much 
wisdom," as Solomon says, " is much grief, and he that 
increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow — of making 
many books there is no end, and much study is a wea- 
riness to the flesh." 

It is not increase of these things at which my text 
calls us to aim ; but of such riches as makes it less dif- 
ficult, and more easy, to get to heaven ; of the wisdom 
that humbles rather than puffs up its possessor ; of a 
beauty, unlike woman's, which is the shield in place of 
being the snare of virtue ; of graces which, unlike a 
fair form or lovely countenance, defy the ravages of 
time, and grow more beautiful with age. It is increase 
of those spiritual endowments which are thus catalogued 
by Paul as fruits of the Holy Spirit — " Love, joy, peace, 
long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, 
temperance ;" it is more humility ; more docility ; more 



THE CHRISTIAN'S GROWTH. 



227 



acts of self-denial and works of charity ; more prayer 
and watchfulness ; a more tender conscience, and a 
closer walk with God ; a heavenlier temper and a 
holier life. In all these, and especially in the love 
that is the spring of all, " I beseech you, brethren, tha* 
ye increase more and more." 

n. How we are to increase in these. 

1. We are to increase equally. 

All our graces are to be cultivated to the neglect of 
none of them. If one side of a tree grows, and ths 
other does not, the tree acquires a crooked form — is a 
misshapen thing. Nor are monsters among mankind 
made only by want of parts, as when the body wants a 
limb, or the face an eye, or the leg a foot, or the arm a 
hand ; but also by some one part growing in excess of 
others. Analogous in its results to this is the unequal 
growth of Christian graces. Let fear, for example, 
that godly fear which is so strong a safeguard of the 
soul, grow out of due proportion to faith, and the re- 
sult is a gloomy, despondent, unhappy Christian. Or, 
let that zeal which makes us like a flaming fire in the 
service of our God, grow more than knowledge, pru- 
dence, wisdom ; and, like a machine without director, 
Dr balance-wheel, generating steam faster than it can 
use it, zeal bursts into extravagance, and carries men 
away into the regions of wild fanaticism. There are 
differences of character which, springing from consti- 
tutional peculiarities, or early education, grace will 
modify, but never altogether eradicate on this side the 
gram Such are those in Bunyan's pictures, all paint- 



228 



THE CHRISTIAN'S GROWTH. 



ed, no doubt, from life — as well as Mr. Great- heart the 
giant-killer and hero of a hundred battles, as Mr. Fee- 
ble-mind, who started at his own shadow and trembled 
at the falling of a leaf. There are also differences 
among Christians which imply no defect ; just as there 
are in countenances which are very unlike, and yet, be 
the complexion dark or fair, the hair of golden colour 
or like the raven's wing, are very beautiful. We do 
not expect or even wish all good men to be alike, any 
more than I would have all the members of a family 
alike ; all flowers alike — none but roses in the garden, 
;r daisies in the field ; the Church of Christ like the 
meadows below, or the star-spangled heavens above, 
owing its beauty in part to that variety in unity which 
marks all the works of God ; and mars none of them. 

Some saints are remarkable for having one grace in 
peculiar prominence — faith, for instance : or resigna- 
tion ; or courage ; or zeal ; or benevolence. Yet 
though this peculiarity may draw most eyes upon them, 
and win them most praise, if not " in all the churches," 
in their neighbourhood, or even in their nation, these 
are not the most perfect specimens of Christianity. 
For it is with men as with trees, amongst which the 
least symmetrical may be the most noticeable. The 
more perfect the shape of the tree, the more symmetri- 
cal the proportion between its trunk and branches, be- 
tween its height and width, it strikes the eye the less ; 
and it is only on a near approach and closer scrutiny 
that we take in its size, and gaze with wonder on its 
towering form, and enormous girth. 

The finest specimen of a Christian is he in whom 



THE CHRISTIANAS GROWTH. 229 



all the graces, like the strings of an angel's harp, are 
in the most perfect harmony. Therefore, we are to 
beware of cultivating one grace or attending to any 
one duty at the expense of others. That is possible ; 
and never more likely to happen than in these days of 
recoil from mere speculative theology, and of busy, 
bustling benevolence. Treading in our Master's steps, 
we are to go about doing good ; yet we may undertake 
so many works of Christian philanthropy as to trench 
on the hours that should be sacred to devotion. In 
seeking the good of others, we may so neglect the cul- 
tivation of our own hearts, and the duties we owe 
to our own families, as to have to cry with the man 
of old, They made me keeper of vineyards, and my 
own vineyard I have not kept. On the other hand, 
like a lark that goes up soaring and singing in heaven, 
while the hawk below is rifling her nest, we may 
spend our hours in devotional exercises, in communion 
with saints and with God, when we should be down 
here — fighting with the devil ; alleviating human 
misery ; righting the wrongs of the oppressed ; rais- 
ing the fallen ; reforming the vicious ; helping hu- 
manity, and by God's help plucking the prey from 
the lion's jaws. The head, the heart, and the hand, 
doctrine, devotion, and work, should each have their 
due share of our time and attention ; we working 
on our life like the ancient sculptor on the dead 
marble, when he produced forms where each feature 
was not only beautiful in itself, but in proportion also 
to every other. On this account these statues of his 
divinities are the admiration of all ages, being the 



230 the christian's growth. 



perfect models of men and women. Even so, it is by 
growing equally in the knowledge, and the love, and 
the life of Christ, that we are to reach the true model 
of a Christian ; and, to use Paul's words, " grow into 
a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of 
the fulness of Christ." 

2. We are to increase constantly. 

This idea is embodied in all those figures under 
which our spiritual life is set forth in the word of 
God. Is it a seed ? So soon as the seed is quickened 
in the soil it grows ; grows by night and by day ; 
grows beneath the foot that tramples on it ; piercing 
the rugged clod, turning and twining to round the 
corner of a stone, it shoots its way upward, till it 
emerge into the blessed light, and drink the dews of 
heaven ; and under their influences, on and ever on 
it grows, rises and ripens, till sickles flash, and reapers 
sing where winter howled over dead fields of snow. 
Is it the day ? From the first faint streak of light 
that our eye catches in the eastern horizon, how 
steadily it grows! hill and dale, town and hamlet, 
woods and winding river, shore and sea, becoming 
more and more distinct ; one star disappearing after 
another in the grey sky ; the fleecy clouds changing 
into opal, and amber, and purple, and burning gold, 
until the sun springs up, flaming from his ocean bed ; 
and the daisies open their golden eyes, and the birds 
sing for joy, and the waves flash and dance in light, 
and the earth rejoices in perfect day. Is it human 
life ? Hanging on a mother's bosom ; sleeping, and 
by and bye with wakening intelligence smiling in hei 



THE CHRISTIAN'S GROWTH. 231 



arms ; on little feet balancing itself so beautifully ; 
trying its first trotting steps ; speaking its first stam- 
mering words ; its affections and faculties opening 
like the petals of a flower, how does the infant de- 
velope itself with each successive year ! Infancy 
growing into prattling childhood ; childhood into 
blooming youth ; youth into ripened manhood, till 
the hand that once played with coral and bells, yon- 
der amid royal pageant, and the blare of trumpets, and 
the boom of cannon, waves the sceptre of empire over 
an acclaiming throng — or till the voice that was once 
but a feeble wail, commands on the reeling deck, or 
amid the roar of battle ; here stirs the deepest pas- 
sions, or there stills the tumults of the people. 

Such is the way that we should grow ; should pray, 
should labour, and should strive to grow. Slow and 
silent, growth is a thing which you neither see nor 
hear ; yet mark in these cases what its steady, con- 
stant progress achieves in the natural world. Should 
it do less in the spiritual ? Is God less omnipotent 
in grace than nature ? By no means. " My grace," 
he says, " is sufficient for thee sufficient for that. 
Would we rise every morning both to get and to 
do some good ; to cultivate some grace and mortify 
some sin ; to live more holily than yesterday — not to 
say its bad words, nor indulge its bad wishes, nor 
repeat its bad deeds ; to learn from the experience of 
the past where we should watch, which is our weak 
side, what are our besetting sins, taking such pre- 
cautions as a man who strengthens the dyke where 
the last floods broke through, or doubles his sentries 



232 the christian's growth. 



where the enemy last surprised him — what progress 
we should make ! we should be a stage nearer heaven 
every day. If not every day, every year at least, 
would present a palpable, sensible difference. It is 
not, but it should be, as easy to tell how long it is 
since we were born the second time, as the first ; our 
spiritual as our natural age ; the years of our new life 
as those of a tree which we count by the rings that 
every season adds to its circumference. 

The nearer we reach the summit of a hill, the climb 
is harder ; and the higher the eagle soars, ever mount- 
ing into thinner air, its flight grows more arduous. 
Now, both in the case of the foot that has climbed the 
highest Alp, and of the wing that cleaves the sky 
above its snowy summit, there is a point where pro- 
gress ceases — this foot can climb, that wing can fly no 
higher. It is quite otherwise with spiritual progress. 
While the higher a believer rises in grace his ascent 
becomes not more difficult but more easy, he never 
reaches a point where progress ceases. Begun on 
earth, it is continued in heaven ; the field that lies be- 
fore us stretching beyond the grave and above the 
stars — illimitable as space and endless as eternity. 

Man, physically considered, grows into maturity, 
stops, and then returns on his course. The descent on 
the other side of the hill corresponding with the ascent 
on this, he goes down much as he went up. The hair 
drops from his head ; the teeth fall from his jaws ; the 
light fades in his eye ; he enters on the stage of a sec- 
ond childhood ; and at length, naked as he came from 
his mother's womb, naked he returns thither. The 



THE CHRISTIAN'S GROWTH. 233 



emblem of his life is the day : first the grey dawn ; 
then sunrise ; then the sun flaming in the zenith ; then 
sinking lower and lower, he wheels his course down 
the western sky ; then he sets ; then fading twilight ; 
and then the depth of night. But how unlike this to 
the progress of the immortal spirit ! With a course 
ever onward, upward, Godward, it presents a case 
somewhat analogous to the mathematical paradox of 
two bodies that are ever approaching, and yet, though 
moving through infinite space and for eternal ages, 
never meet ; and never can meet. Even so, though 
they shall never reach the infinite height and perfec- 
tion of divinity, the saints in glory, constantly ascend- 
ing, shall be ever approaching it ; so that death which, 
in a sense, makes us perfect, and introduces us into a 
state of rest, shall not arrest our progress. Our life, 
in fact, is like a ship working its way down a river, 
where the water grows deeper, and the banks grow 
wider, and the view expands as we move on, till at 
death, as there, where the waves roar upon the bar, we 
shall pass out on a great, broad, shoreless ocean, on 
which, with no limits bounding our progress, we shall 
advance evermore ; growing in the knowledge, and 
love, and likeness of Christ with the ages of eternity, 
increasing yet " more and more." 

3. We are to make efforts to grow. 

Some men have mooted the strange notion that that 
peculiar adaptation of the bodies of certain animals 
to their habits, in which we see the wisdom of their 
Maker, has resulted from the efforts which they made 
to adapt themselves to their circumstances — that the 



234 the christian's growth. 



heron for instance, by stretching itself up to preserve 
its feathers from the water of the stream or shore 
where it fishes, got its limbs lengthened into stilts, and 
acquired also its taper neck by constant and long con- 
tinued efforts to strike its prey at the bottom of the 
pool. Any theory more absurd can hardly be imag- 
ined. Yet, in the spiritual kingdom, the very wish 
and effort to be good has, with God's blessing and 
through operation of the Holy Spirit, a tendency to 
improve us. In the attempt to be better we grow bet- 
ter, even as the flapping of a nestling's wing, impotent 
though it be to raise the bird into the air, fits its pin- 
ions for future flight ; or as the creeping of an infant 
on the floor prepares its limbs for walking. It is to 
efforts, not to idleness, to supineness, to sleep, that 
God promises the blessing — those heavenly aids, with- 
out which the arm of a giant, to say nothing of a child 
in grace, cannot snap the feeblest cord that binds us to 
earth and sin. God works ; and we are to be fellow- 
workers with him, that we may " increase more and 
more." 

Cast a sponge into water, and, the fluid filling its 
empty cells, it swells out before our eyes ; increases 
more and more. There is no effort here, and could be 
none ; for though once a living animal, the sponge is 
now dead and dry. But it is not as sponges fill with 
water, nor, to use a Scripture figure often employed, 
and sometimes misapplied, as Gideon's fleece was filled 
with dews, that God's people are replenished with his 
grace. More is needed than simply to bring ourselves 
in contact with ordinances ; to read the Bible ; to re- 



THE CHRISTIAN^ GROWTH. 235 



pair on Sabbath to the church ; to sit down in com- 
munion seasons at the Lord's table. The babe, for ex- 
ample, is laid in a mother's arms, and in contact with 
her breast ; but is laid there only to die, unless, with 
slumbering instincts awakened, it fasten and suck by 
its own efforts the nourishment provided for it, inde- 
pendent of itself; and there, drawing life from a 
mother's bosom, it lies in her loving arms, the symbol 
of him who hangs by faith in Christ, and, fed on the 
sincere milk of the word, is nourished up into the like- 
ness and image of God. And after all, this picture 
conveys but an adequate idea of what is required of 
us, in order that we may increase more and more. It 
is by other and greater efforts than the infant's we are 
to grow in grace, and get to heaven. Christ's chil- 
dren, like our own, are not always to remain babes. The 
mother, while rocking her infant's cradle, is hopefully 
looking forward to a time when her boy shall have 
grown a man ; to stand up for a mother's cause ; to de- 
fend a mother's head ; to go forth to his daily labour ; 
to win prizes in the race ; if danger and duty summon 
him, to fight the battles of his king and country. To 
such active, energetic, and self-denying labours, Christ 
calls the candidate for a heavenly crown j for instance, 
Search the Scriptures — Watch unto prayer — Pray 
without ceasing — Fight the good fight — Labour for 
the bread that never perisheth — Give all diligence to 
make your calling and election sure — Work out your 
salvation with fear and trembling — See that no man 
take your crown. 
While all our hopes of salvation centre in the cross 



236 THE CHRIST AN's GROWTH. 

of Christ, and all our hopes of progress hang on the 
promised aids of the Holy Spirit, let us therefore exert 
ourselves to the utmost ; reaching forth to higher at- 
tainments, and aiming at daily increase in every holy 
and Christian habit. What was suitable to us once, 
should not satisfy us now. The man out-grows the 
dress of childhood. Down among the rocky hollows 
of the sea, there are creatures that cast their shell 
year by year ; and up among the storm-beaten cliffs of 
the mountain, year by year also, the moulting eagle 
casts her feathers — these that they may walk in larger, 
stronger mail ; the other, that she may soar on broader 
pinions, and to higher nights. At such increase should 
we aim ; to grow more busy in God's work ; to spend 
more time and money in his service ; to perform greater 
acts of self-denial ; to increase both in the heavenli- 
ness of our temper, and in the generosity of our gifts. 
Not content with being what once we were, and doing 
only what once we did, let us " covet earnestly the best 
gifts attempt the loftiest heights of grace ; saying, 
with the holy ambition of an apostle, When I was a 
child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I 
thought as a child ; but when I became a man I put 
away childish things. The fulness of the Godhead 
bodily is in Jesus Christ ; and from that exhaustless 
supply may the Holy Spirit fill us more and more, day 
by day, till, the moorings strained that bind us to 
earth, we are ready, on their being severed by the 
stroke of death, to shoot up to heaven — saying with 
our Saviour, " I leave the world, and go to the Father." 
For these ends, Wait on the Lord ; wait, I say, on th« 



THE CHRISTIAN'S GROWTH. 



237 



Lord, — He giveth power to the faint ; and to them 
that have no might he increaseth strength, — The youths 
shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall ut- 
terly fall ; but they that wait on the Lord shall renew 
their strength : they shall mount up with wings as 
eagles ; they shall run and not be weary, they shall 
walk and not faint. 



"Wait on the Lord, be of good courage, and he shall strenghten thine 
heart; wait, I say, on the Lord." — Psalm xxvii. 14. 

The Church of God has often been in a low, lan- 
guishing, and to all human appearance, in a desperate 
condition ; yet one thing, as Solomon says, is set 
against another, and it has been at such times that 
his people have realised most fully the comforts of 
his providence and gracious presence. These stars 
shine brightest in dark, winter nights. There was a 
time, for example, when the Church was reduced to 
the small number of eight persons ; and these eight 
in imminent danger of perishing. If one plank of 
the ark had started ; if some mountain billow, strik- 
ing broadside on, had swept her against the rugged 
summit of a mountain-top lying like a reef below the 
flood ; if any one of the hundred accidents that are 
daily wrecking other ships had happened to this that 
sailed a shoreless sea without crew or helm, or helms- 
man, to so low a pitch was the Church of God re- 
duced, that the wreck of one ship had been her ruin 
— the whole race of men had perished. 

It is astonishing and refreshing to look back on the 
way God has often extricated his people, when they 

(238) 



THE CHRISTIANAS STRENGTH. 239 



seemed hemmed in by destruction — had not a chance 
of escape ; and more still, to see how Haman swung 
on the gallows which he raised for Mordecai, how the 
persecutors of the three Hebrew children were con- 
sumed in the flames they had kindled for them, and 
how the Red Sea, into which the Egyptians would 
have driven God's people, became, not the grave of 
the oppressed, but of their oppressors. Thus, in the 
days of old, God made the wrath of man and of devils 
also to praise him. He does so still. The trials and 
temptations to which he leaves his saints exposed 
shall be but the storm that flashes, and thunders, and 
roars through the air to leave it fresher and purer than 
before. 

Nor does God leave his children comfortless during 
their trials, amid such troubles as David was in when 
he penned his psalm. He was beset by malignant 
enemies. " Mine enemies and my foes," he says, " come 
upon me to eat up my flesh," but he adds, " they stum- 
bled and fell." With such confidence has God in- 
spired him, that he is ready, single handed, Samson- 
like, to meet a host in battle. Though not these, 
he says, but " an host, should encamp against me, 
my heart shall not fear." He knows where to fly to 
— "In the time of trouble he shall hide me in his 
pavilion : in the secret jf his tabernacle shall he hide 
me ; he shall set me upon a rock : and now shall 
mine head be lifted up above mine enemies round 
about me." He sits where the billows cannot reach 
him, let them rage and foam as they may. He had 
the most perfect confidence in the wisdom, power, and 



240 the christian's strength. 

love of his God. This, when all things looked dark 
and dreary, sustained him ; " I had fainted," he says, 
" unless I had believed to see the goodness of the Lord 
in the land of the living." 

To recognize the hand of God in everything ; to 
believe that all that is done on earth is first decreed 
in heaven, and that neither an angel nor a sparrow 
falls without the Father ; in the loudest thunder to 
hear his voice ; in the clouds that cast their shadow 
on our path, to see his chariot ; through the gloom of 
life's darkest night, and amid the billows of its storm- 
iest sea, to see Jesus walking ; to hear him saying, It 
is I, be not afraid ; this is to be happy in the midst of 
misery, and to enjoy peace within when all is trouble 
without. Waiting on God, with such a faith on his 
providence, how many fears would his people be 
spared; and how would they be delivered from an 
impatience which, running before providence instead 
of waiting on it, fills their mind with discontent, and 
not seldom tempts them into sin. In my text, David 
gives us his own experience. He tells where he had 
found his strength, and teaches us where to find ours. 
In now considering these words, and, taking them in 
a wider, than perhaps their original, sense, let us con- 
sider, — 

I. How we are to wait on God. 

1. We are to wait on God in his ordinances. 

Seek ye the Lord, says the prophet, while he may 
be found ; but we are not only to seek the Lord while 
he may be found, but also where he may be found. 



THE CHRISTIAN'S STRENGTH. 241 

Where did Simeon and Anna wait for the Consolation 
of Israel ? Not in their own homes, nor in Herod's 
palace, nor amid scenes of worldly greatness, nor even 
amid the rocks of Sinai, where God in the days of 
old had descended with a shout, " The Lord with the 
sound of a trumpet." They waited for him in the 
tempie ; and in the temple found him. When they 
had lost their son, our Saviour, where did Joseph and 
Mary find him ? As a mother when the alarm rises 
that her child is missing, flies from house to house, 
from neighbour to neighbour, to cry, Is my boy 
here ? so ran Mary from company to company of the 
multitude who were returning with her from Jeru- 
salem. They had not seen him. And now with 
Joseph, her speed increasing with her fears, she hur- 
ries back to the city ; three days they wander up and 
down its streets ; with fainting hearts and wear} 
limbs three long days they seek him ; and when hope 
so ill to kill and slow to die in a mother's heart, 
whether she look for the return of the lost, or the 
recovery of the sick, or the reform of the profligate, 
had almost expired in Mary's bosom, they thought of 
the Temple. Strange that the first place they should 
have sought him in, was the last they thought of. 
But there they found the child, sitting among its as- 
tonished and grey-haired elders, asking, and answering 
questions. And how often has it happened that many, 
while waiting upon God in the public ordinances of 
religion, and asking what shall I do to be saved, have 
found a Saviour in the church ; and their hearts have 
there echoed the old man's words when, bending over 
11 



242 the christian's strength. 

the infant Jesus, lie exclaimed, Mine eyes have sees 
thy salvation. And as Mary also found the son she 
had lost in the temple, how many who, so to speak, 
had lost Christ, lost a sense of his favour and of 
their interest in him and his salvation, have got them 
back again, and been restored to peace within the 
house of God. Were Jesus as dear to us as a Sav- 
iour, as he was to Mary as a son, we would seek in 
every place, and never rest till we found him ; still 
nowhere is the sinner more likely, or so likely, to find 
him, as where the crowd is met and the cross is 
raised — in his Father's house of business. " He lov- 
eth the gates of Sion more than all the tabernacles of 
Jacob." 

Besides the public ordinances of religion, such as 
the communion table and Sabbath services, in the use 
of which we are to wait upon the Lord, there are other 
means of grace at our service ; and still more fully 
within our reach. The communion table is but occa 
sionally spread, and the doors of the church may be 
thrown open only once a week ; but the pages of the 
Bible are always open, and the gates of prayer, like 
those of heaven, are never shut. Prayer is like a pri- 
vate postern, through which, as well by night as by 
day, we have the privilege of constant access to the 
palace and presence of the King. In the words we 
learned from a mother's lips, and lisped at her knee, 
prayer is the first door that is open ; and it is the last 
that is shut. There, where a man is tossing on the 
bed of death, and the Bible lies shut on his pillow, for 
he cannot read it, and to the promises of the gospel. 



THE CHRISTIAN^ STRENGTH. 243 



which we pour into his ear, he gives no sign of assent, 
for he cannot hear us, mart these moving lips ; listen 
to these broken sentences. Behold he prayeth ! and 
his spirit, breathed out in a groan or a sigh, flies heav- 
enward on the wings of prayer. 

We are to wait on God in the devout and diligent 
use of all these means of grace — in the daily, use of 
the private means. On the strength of one meal Moses 
and Elijah lived forty days, and the benefit of sacra- 
ment or of Sabbath may possibly last till the next re- 
turn ; but it is as impossible for the soul to live and 
thrive without daily prayer, as for the body to live and 
thrive without daily food. Our graces are like plants 
that need daily watering ; watches that need daily 
winding ; lamps that need daily filling ; bodies that 
need daily feeding. It is as necessary for the graces 
of the inner, as for the strength, and health, and life 
of the outward man that we should wait on God, to 
say, " Give me day by day my daily bread." 

2. We are to wait on God in his ordinance with 
faith and perseverance. 

Spring winds have melted the snows of winter and 
dried the soil ; and now the husbandman goes forth 
with plow and harrows to the field, and waits for sun- 
shine and showers to quicken the seed which he spreads 
broadcast upon the ground. In buds bursting on the 
trees, in flowers waking from their winter sleep, his 
eye may catch no sign that it shall ever revive, but he 
sows in faith that the season will come — he waits and 
he works for it. Far away from the billows that are 
breaking out on the sandy shore, the vessel lies upon 



244 the christian's strength. 

the beach, doomed as it would seem to rot ; why then 
do men climb her shrouds, and man the yards, and 
shake out broad sheets of canvas, and loose her moor- 
ings, to catch the breeze and bear away across the 
deep ? Theirs are acts of faith ; they believe in the 
law of tides, and that every billow breaking nearer 
and nearer, the waters at length shall wash her keel, 
and, rising on her sides, float her off the sands — they 
wait and work for that. Have they that plough the 
land, or plough the sea, such faith in the stability of 
the laws of nature ; and shall we have less faith in the 
word of God ? Times and seasons are not revealed to 
us ; but that forms no reason why we should not ex- 
pect the blessing — working and waiting for it. 

Go wash seven times in Jordan and thy flesh shalJ 
be made whole, was the command laid on the Syrian 
leper ; and what had we thought of him, had he, be- 
cause there was no improvement at the second, nor at 
the third, nor at the fourth plunge, left the water with- 
out that seventh baptism from which he rose complete- 
ly cured — " his flesh again like unto the flesh of a little 
child ! 99 Though God has not informed us how often 
we must ask before we receive, why should we grow 
weary waiting ? We have his word for it, that whether 
it be the pardon of our sins through the blood of Jesus, 
or the sanctification of our spirits through his own, ap- 
plied for in faith and perseverance, they shall be ours ; 
and what better security than his word could we have, 
or what security so good ? See how success crowns 
faith and perseverance ! Look at the blind men who 
stood by the gate of Jericho ; they make the air resound 



THE CHRISTIAN^ STRENGTH. 245 

with their cries ; the farther Christ goes from them, 
the louder their appeals ; the more tney are told to 
hold their peace, the more they cry, " Son of David, 
have mercy upon us ! ,J Look at Paul when he sought 
to be relieved of the thorn in his flesh, the messenger 
of Satan sent to buffet him ! To his first prayer no 
answer was returned, but that only made him send a 
second ; and the silence that followed, that only made 
him send a third ; he got his answer then — a gracious 
answer. But what if he had not ? He would have 
sent a fourth, or a fifth ; nor have ceased to pray, but 
when we should cease, that is, when a man dying of 
hunger ceases to ask for food — who asks so long as he 
can move his tongue ; and when he cannot speak, holds 
out his skinny hand for bread. Give God no rest ; 
take none yourselves. How often have I seen a little 
child throw its arms around its father's neck, and win, 
by kisses, and importunities, and tears, what had been 
refused ! Who has not yielded to importunity, even 
when a dumb animal looked up with suppliant eyes in 
our face for food ? Is God less pitiful than we ? Is 
there no tender meaning in the term, Father ! by which 
we are taught to address him ? What man is there of 
you, says our Lord, whom, if his son ask bread, will he 
give him a stone ? or if he ask a fish, will he give him 
a serpent ? If ye then, being evil, know how to give 
good gifts unto your children, how much more shall 
your Father which is in heaven give good things to 
them that ask him. 

Turn to our Lord's history and shew me the man 
who sought his ear in vain ; the suppliant he dismissed 



246 the christian's strength. 

unsatisfied, the sinner he sent away unpardoned. The 
impotent man might sit thirty years at Bethesda's pool, 
every day constant in his attendance, with eager eye 
fixed on the waters, watching their troubling — the 
sign of virtue, and of the angels descent ; and unhappy 
man, all in vain ! But who has ever so prayed, waited, 
and watched for the salvation of his soul ; and done 
that in vain ? Never. Never has the promise failed. 
" Why sayest thou, Jacob, and speakest, Israel, 
my way is hid from the Lord, and my judgment is 
passed over from my God ? Hast thou not known ? 
hast thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the Lord, 
the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not nei- 
ther is weary ? there is no searching of his understand- 
ing. He giveth power to the faint ; and to them that 
have no might he increaseth strength. Even the youths 
shall be faint and weary, and the young men shall ut- 
terly fall ; but they that wait upon the Lord shall renew 
their strength ; they shall mount up with wings as 
eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall 
walk and not faint." 

n. They that wait on the Lord shall receive strength. 

Thus God shall make good his promise, As thy dayc- 
are, so shall thy strength be. Why then, it may be 
asked, do men go from the house of God and from a 
communion table to be worsted " as at other times be- 
fore," by the devil, the world, and the flesh ? Baptize 
a withering plant with water, and it lifts up its head, 
casts off the old leaves, and puts out a fresh crop of 



THE CHRISTIAN^ STRENGTH. 247 

buds and blossoms ; or carry a cup of water, or of 
wme, to the lips of a fainting man, and his pulse beats 
again ; the blood returns to his cheek ; he opens his 
eyes : he rises to his feet, if a racer to resume the 
course, if a soldier to renew the combat. And if it 
be true, that like water to a languishing flower, or wine 
to a fainting man, so are the ordinances of religion to 
the soul, why are men often no better of them ? why 
are they like " clouds without rain w that give their 
shadows, but no showers, to brown barren fields? 
This admits of an easy explanation. 

The ordinances of religion are compared to wells of 
water • but then, they are like Jacob's well. The water 
lies far below the surface ; and to the men of the 
world, the mere professor of religion who has the 
name but not the faith of a Christian, we may say, 
as the woman said to our Lord, " Sir, thou hast nothing 
to draw with, and the well is deep." Faith is, as it 
were, the rope, and our souls the vessel which we let 
down into this well to fill them with living water. 
But that they do no good to some, forms no reason why 
we should despise, or neglect ordinances. It is no 
fault in the bread, that, thrust between a dead man's 
teeth, it does not nourish him. The truth is, that we 
must have spiritual to get the benefit of religious or- 
dinances. Water will revive a withering, but not a 
withered plant ; wine will restore a dying, but not a 
dead man ; the breath of your mouth, or the breeze of 
heaven, will rekindle the smouldering coal, but not the 
cold, grey ashes of the hearth. And it is only spiritual 
life that can derive benefit from such ordinances as are 



248 the christian's strength. 

intended to revive the faint and give strength to the 
weary. 

Were they to speak their own experience, many 
who come to the sacrament and go to the church would 
say, What is the Lord that we should serve him ? what 
profit shall we have if we pray to him ? Still there is 
no genuine Christian but will set to his seal that God's 
promises are true ; but has often found himself in times 
of trouble, in seasons of trial and temptation, greatly 
refreshed and strengthened by waiting on the Lord. 
What though the disciples, within a few hours of leav- 
ing the communion table, gave its vows to the winds ; 
bent like reeds before the blast ; and, instead of rally- 
ing round their master as they had promised, played 
the part of cowards — flung away their weapons and 
fled the field. They had been waiting on the Lord ; 
and was this all they got ; or is it all we shall get by 
doing so ? These questions may be asked ; but they 
prove nothing against the truth of God's word. It is 
not the fact that they went from the communion table 
to flee. That is not a correct statement of the case. 
They did not go from making vows, from professing 
that they would die with the Lord — one to deny, and 
all to desert him. After supper they went to sleep ; 
and from that, not from their knees, they rose to flee. 
The husbandman covers the seed when he has sown it ; 
the workman rivits the nail when he has driven it ; 
and had the disciples followed up the work of com- 
munion with the work of prayer, they would have 
risen from their knees, if need be, to die, but in no 
case to deny their Master. 



THE CHRISTIAN'S STRENGTH. 249 

The case of the disciples only proves how we shall 
lose our strength by not waiting on the Lord ; as the 
case of Sampson, on the other hand, proves how, when 
our strength is lost, we shall have it restored. Delilah 
had shorn his locks ; the Philistines had put out his 
eyes ; and he who was once their terror, had now become 
their sport. They have no fear of Samson now, but 
crowd to the theatre where he is to afford them amuse- 
ment, till the court below is thronged to the doors, and 
three thousand cluster like bees on the roof that rests 
on the two main pillars of the building. He is brought 
in ; he makes them sport a while. Once, when the 
breeze of heaven played with his flowing locks, he 
paused not in battle till, before the sweep of his arm, 
the field was covered with a thousand dead ; but his 
locks have been shorn, his strength is gone, and, soon 
weary, depressed in heart and spirit, he is led to gather 
breath, and rest himself against the massive pillars of 
the capacious building. He leans on them for a while, 
fainting and exhausted. Then all of a sudden he 
startles the house, and turns all eyes on him by his 
attitude and his cry, Let me die with the Philistines I 
Samson is himself again. He bows himself on the 
pillars. The solid columns bend beneath his strength ; 
then the loud crash of the falling house, and the wild 
shriek of the thousands it buries, rise together to 
heaven ; and then all is silent, as on the waters into 
which the ship has gone down with her shrieking crew. 
Samson found the strength he had lost — "the dead 
which he slew at his death were more than they which 
he slew iu his life." Where ? How did his day, after 
11* 



250 the christian's strength. 



so dark a noon, close with such a brilliant sunset ? He 
waited on the Lord. Rising in prayer to heaven, he 
drew strength from God. Go thou and do likewise. 
Wait on the Lord and he shall strengthen your heart. 
Wait, I say, on the Lord. 



** There remaineth yet very much land to be possessed." — 
Joshua xiii. 1. 

The land of Canaan, to which my text refers, has 
been employed both by inspired and uninspired men, 
as a type of heaven — of the happy rest on which be- 
lievers enter at the dread hour of death. Nor does it 
need a lively fancy to see the salient points in the his- 
tory of a saint as they are set forth in the events of 
that wonderous journey which began in Egypt, and 
ended in the land of promise. 

In the slavery, oppression, degradation, and intoler- 
able miseries which the Hebrews suffered in the house 
of bondage, all who have been brought by God's grace 
to know, and feel, the evil of sin, see a striking figure 
of the estate of sin and misery in which every man is 
born. Then look at Moses, the leader of their exodus ! 
Sprung from the race whom he was to deliver, bone of 
their bone, and flesh of their flesh ; plucked in early 
infancy from violent and murderous hands ; reappear- 
ing, after years of retirement and obscurity, on the 
stage where he was to play so conspicuous a part ; 
making miracles, whether he turned water into blood, 
or the sea into dry land, or the rock into flowing 

(251) 



252 



THE CHRISTIAN'S WORK. 



streams, common things ; standing between the wrath 
of an offended God, and a stiff-necked and guilty 
people ; on such terms of familiar intercourse with 
God himself, as no mere mortal was before, or has been 
since ; resigning his commission only when he had 
brought Israel through innumerable, and, to all but 
divine power, insurmountable difficulties, to the banks 
of Jordan ; and then with an eye not dimmed, nor 
strength abated, nor mark of age on his raven locks, 
ascending a mountain to vanish on a sudden, and for 
ever from view — Moses in these, as well as other, re- 
spects is a remarkable type of our Lord Jesus Christ. 

Then look at the Hebrew host ! Through the dark- 
ness of night, and the very depths of the ocean, see 
them in haste and alarm making for the other shore. 
Next morning, they find themselves saved, at liberty — 
the sea strewing her beach with the carcasses of their 
enemies, and rolling her joyous waves between Israel 
and the land of bondage. What an image of that con- 
version, new birth, heavenly baptism, burial to sin, 
through which the child of God passes, on leaving 
nature to enter upon a state of grace ; with which he 
begins his pilgrimage to heaven, and without which our 
Lord declares that no man shall see the kingdom of 
God. 

The journey now begins. How full it is of events 
and circumstances, that more or less clearly symbolize 
those of the Christian's life ! 

The Hebrew host subsist on food which is not 
reaped on the fields of earth, but falls from the skies ; 
the water they drink is not found in pools, nor drawn 



THE CHRISTIANAS WORK. 



253 



from wells, but gushes to the stroke of Moses' rod 
from a flinty rock ; their steps are guided through the 
pathless desert by a pillar that moves before them, 
forming a cloudy screen in the heat of day, and in the 
midnight darkness a blazing light — things these which 
were the types of good things to come through Him 
who is the Rock of Ages, the true Bread from heaven, 
the pillar of all our hopes, the divine guide and guar- 
dian of a believer's heavenward way. Nor do the 
types and points of resemblance between the host in 
the desert, and Christ's church on earth, end here. In 
their discontent and outbursts of rebellion, in their 
longings to return to the flesh-pots of Egypt, in their 
coward fears and frequent backslidings, and in the 
whole of that journey of many comforts, but also of 
many hardships — of great mercies on the part of God, 
and great sins on theirs, who can fail to see a remark- 
able type of the lights and shadows, the faults and 
failings, of every believer's life ? 

The journey now reaches its close ; and the host, 
purified through the deaths of forty years from the bad 
elements it brought out of Egypt, arrives on the banks 
of Jordan. Their feet have reached the end of a 
long, weary pilgrimage ; nor does anything now but a 
deep, dark flood interpose between them and the green 
fields, and golden harvests, and vine-clad hills, on 
which they gaze with rapture. That flood is a symbol 
of the river of death ; and when Jordan's waters are 
di rided, and, types of Jesus, the white-robed priests 
hold the bed of the stream till the last Hebrew is over, 
and the host, with " not a hoof left behind," enters the 



254 



THE CHRISTIAN'S WORK. 



promised land, we have an emblem of the child of God 
going down at the close of life into the river — enter- 
ing by death into eternal rest. 

Thus far the analogy holds ; in these particulars, but 
not in others. Heaven is the peculiar dwelling-place 
of God ; and its happy tenants are holy angels and 
the redeemed — the spirits of just men made perfect ; 
and on the other side of death's dark flood the shore is 
lined with " shining ones," some with palms, some with 
harps, who wait to bid us welcome to the realms of 
bliss. How different the passage of Jordan! The 
Hebrews entered Canaan marching, sword in hand, 
marshalled for battle. They had to meet, and to fight 
the enemy in many a bloody field. The land was 
theirs by promise, but not by possession. Years have 
passed since they entered it ; Joshua's sun is now nigh 
its setting ; still, in the words of my text, " There re- 
maineth yet very much land to be possessed." 

Thug Canaan, though commonly used as a type of 
heaven, is, in some of its aspects, a type rather of a 
state of grace than of a state of glory. And taking 
this view of it, I remark that — 

I. Canaan, as the Israelites found it, represents the 
state of man's heart when the grace of God en- 
ters it. 

When the Hebrews burst like a flood into the Land 
of Promise, it was peopled by bold, active, warlike 
tribes, who were as superior to their invaders in the 
arts of pease, as in those of war. The land was cul- 
tivated like a garden, and peopled like a bee-hive 01 



THE CHRISTIAN IE WORK. 



255 



an ant-hill ; and on its plains, which were thickly stud- 
ded with towns and villages, stood many a mighty city. 
Its armies were recruited, not from the dregs of towns, 
but by a race of giants ; walls of immense strength 
and height guarded its principal cities ; and on forta- 
lices perched on many a rocky crag, War sat armed — 
guarding the treasures of trade and husbandry, and 
ready to do battle for a country well worth defending, 
flowing with corn, and oil, and wine, and milk, and 
honey. 

This is no fancied picture. Hear the report of the 
spies whom Moses sent out to explore the land — " We 
came into the land whither thou sentest us, and surely 
it floweth with milk and honey ; nevertheless the peo- 
ple be strong that dwell in the land, and the cities are 
walled and very great. Moreover, we saw the chil- 
dren of Anak there. The Amalekites dwell in the 
land of the South ; and the Hittites, and the Jebusites, 
and the Amorites dwell in the mountains ; and the 
Canaanites dwell by the sea, and by the coast of Jor- 
dan ; and all the people that we saw in it are men of 
a great stature : There we saw, the giants the sons of 
Anak ; and we were in our own sight as grasshoppers, 
and so we were in theirs." 

Such was the state of Canaan ; and such the people 
who held it, and were prepared to fight for it, against 
all comers. And where could we find a truer picture 
of the bad habits, powerful corruptions, and unholy 
passions of the unrenewed heart, than in the Jebusites, 
Amalekites, Amorites, Hittites, and Canaanites — the 
heathen, from whose stout hands, for God, and by 



256 



THE CHRISTIAN^ WORK, 



God's help, Joslraa must wrest this fair and lovely 
land. Its native inhabitants were idolatrous, worship- 
ping every God but the true one ; gross sensualists 
indulging in brutal pleasures, and living in the prac- 
tice of such abominable immoralities as at once filled 
other nations with shame, and God with such anger 
that he declared he would spue them out of his mouth ; 
monsters of inhumanity, who added cruelty to con- 
quest, and took pride in their courts offering such a 
spectacle as this : — Three score and ten kings, saith 
the king of Jerusalem, having their thumbs and great 
toes cut off, gathered their meat under my table. How 
lamentable that so fair a land should be possessed by 
such tenants. 

There is something infinitely more lamentable. Think 
of a soul like thine, made at first in the image of God ; 
a being such as thou art, once occupying a rank in crea- 
tion next to and but a little lower than that of angels ; 
a heart like thine which, though blighted by sin, still 
retains some traces of departed glory — alienated from 
the true God, held captive of the devil, ruled by un- 
holy passions, full of corruptions as difficult to root 
out as were these sons of Anak who, in Goliath and 
his giant race, disturbed the peace of Israel, and defied 
the armies of the living God many long years after 
the land was, in a sense, both conquered and possessed. 
The Hebrews did not enter Canaan to find an empty 
land, which they had nothing to do but to occupy ; nor 
does Jesus, when he enters our heart by his Spirit and 
saving grace. It is in possession of his enemies. Tbey 
are there to dispute his rights, and resist his entrance 



THE CHRISTIAN'S WORK. 



251 



— sors of Anak, indeed : more formidable still ; foi 
giant sins are less easily conquered than giant men. 
Let David bear witness. Did not he find it easier, 
when a beardless lad, to overcome a son of Anak, than 
when a mature and saintly man, to master his vicious 
passions, and, ruling his own spirit, conquer himself. 

II. The blessings of the kingdom of grace, like those 
of Canaan, have to be fought for. 

A band of emigrants, sailing from their native shores 
to seek a home in our colonies, presents almost no anal 
ogy to the Hebrew nation in its exodus from Egypt, 
and its march through the desert to the land of Cana- 
an. As a tree rudely torn from its birth-place leaves 
in broken, bleeding fibres, part of its roots behind, our 
emigrants leave affections clinging to the old land, to 
their brothers, their sisters, their parents, to the homes 
and churches — to the very graves they leave behind 
them — and from the deck of the ship that bears them 
away, they continue to gaze fixedly and sorrowfully, 
and with tears gushing from their eyes, on their own 
blue mountains, till they sink beneath the waves. But 
the contrast between them and the Israelites does not 
lie so much in the feelings with which each left the 
old land, as in their manner of entering the new one. 
The only arms which our emigrant carries, are spade 
and plough to subdue the soil, and axe to subdue the 
forests. No hostile foe lines the beach to dispute hia 
landing. A few wretched, degraded, half naked sav- 
ages, slowly retreating before the steps of civilization, 
and rapidly perishing from the face cf the earth, before 



208 THE CHRISTIAN'S WORK. 

the vices which Christians have taught them to prac- 
tice, are the thinly scattered tenants of rolling prairie 
and gloomy forest. The emigrant plunges into the 
woods, where he finds nothing but natural difficulties 
to contend with. They fall before his stout arm. 
The only wounds he inflicts are made by his axe on 
the trees, and by his ploughshare on the bosom of a 
virgin soil. By day he works ; on Sabbath he rests, 
and he sleeps away the night safe from harm within 
his rude log-cabin. And after a few busy years, a 
smiling garden and fields of golden corn, and a rose- 
bowered home, and happy, sun-browned children play 
ing around his door, proclaim the triumphs, and reward 
the toils, of honest industry. He sowed in tears, but 
he reaps in joy. 

On entering Canaan the children of Israel were 
called to other labours. They had none of the ordin- 
ary work of emigrants to undertake. They had neith- 
er forests to clear ; nor soil to break up ; nor fields to 
fence ; nor vines to plant ; nor houses to rear ; nor 
cities to build. These were all furnished to their 
hand — like the blessings of salvation, which are with- 
out money or price. There lay the land across Jor- 
dan's rolling flood ; and to eyes weary of the glaring 
sand, how beautiful its verdure, and to feet weary of a 
long, wandering pilgrimage, how tempting its rest. It 
was theirs by gift, not by right ; theirs not by pur- 
chase, but by promise. They had it not yet in posses- 
sion. They must wrest it from the stout heathen who 
held it ; and, God blessing them, and fighting on theil 
side, they must reap these fields, not with songs and 



THE CHRISTIANAS WORK. 259 



peaceful sickles, but with shouts of battle and the 
sword of war. 

The blessings of the kingdom also are the believer's 
by free gift, the purchase of a Saviour's blood, and the 
promise of him who is not a man that he should lie, 
aor the son of man that he should repent. Yet, no 
more than the Israelites in the days of old, does any 
man enter on the easy, undisputed, peaceful possession 
of them, — or find that so soon as he is converted he 
enters into rest, and has nothing more to do than to sit 
down and enjoy the blessings prefigured by that coun- 
try which was full of corn and wine, and flowed with 
milk and honey. Rest ! There is a rest that remain- 
eth for the people of God ; but it is in heaven, not 
here. Here, we have to fight with corruptions diffi- 
cult to kill, breaking out like old sores which had been 
skinned over ; bursting out like a fire that was smoul- 
dering in its ashes, and onJ.y needed a breath to blow 
it into flame ! Here, we have to maintain a continual 
watch against, and wage incessant warfare with, bad 
habits, bad desires, bad propensities. Here, these like 
the old Canaanites, fight hard to keep what they hold, 
and to regain what they have lost. The fate which 
God pronounced on the Canaanites, Jebusites, Hittites, 
Perizzites, Amalekites, is that to which we are to doom 
our dearest sins. They were to drive them out of the 
land — to slay them. Nor, child of God, fancy that 
your state is a right one, or that your work is done, so 
long as one sin lives within you — be it pride, ambition, 
envy, lust, malice, an ugly or a beautiful fiend ; be its 
type the Jebusite, that met Israel in battle, or this 



260 



THE CHRISTIAN'S WORK. 



lovely woman who throws her chains over the strong 
man's neck, and leads him captive — the dupe of her 
fascinating, but fatal charms. You must spare neither. 
Bring out every sin before the Lord, and let it be con- 
demned to death ; pass the sword of the Spirit through 
and through it, till it has breathed out its cursed life, 
and has no more dominion over you. As the apostle 
says, Let him that nameth the name of Christ depart 
from all iniquity. Beware how you leave innate cor- 
ruption, and old sinful habits, to draw down on you the 
anger of a holy God, and the afflictions threatened on 
Israel in these words, " If ye will not drive out the in- 
habitants of the land before you, then it shall come to 
pass, that those which you let remain shall be pricks in 
your eyes, and thorns in your flesh ; and shall vex you 
in the land wherever ye dwell." 

III. The most advanced Christian has much to do in 
the way of sanctification. 

We think of an aged Christian as of one seated on 
the banks of Jordan, enjoying the calm evening of a 
busy, holy, useful life — looking back on the past with- 
out any other regret than what springs from the recol- 
lection of his sins, and looking forward on the future 
without the shadow of a fear ; as a servant with his 
task done, waiting to receive his wages, and the wel- 
come summons that calls him home. We fancy him 
by the eye of faith piercing the mists that hang over 
death's dark flood ; and as he descries the shining ones 
on the other shore, stretching out his aged arms, and 
crying, as he longs to be gone and be with them, 



THE CHRISTIAN'S WORK. 



261 



that I had the wings of a dove, that I might fly away 
and be at rest. 

Our fancy's picture may be beautiful. It is more 
beautiful than true ; such cases are rare. The Chris- 
tian commonly dies in harness, in the battle-field, in 
the thick of battle, fighting on to the last gasp. The 
servant commonly needs all his time for his work ; and 
is engaged down to life's last hour — to the cry, Behold, 
the bridegroom eoineth — trimming his lamp, and set- 
ting the house in order. The fruit does not hang on 
the branch, but commonly drops so soon as it is mel- 
low ; and the corn shakes out so soon as it is ripe. 
The death-bed of the saint has been indeed the scene 
of his hardest work, his deepest grief, his bitterest 
tears, and the most terrible assaults of the Evil One. 
" Stern all " is the cry when the monster of the deep 
begins his dying struggles ; and then every man bends 
to his oar, pulling out of the sweep of that tremendous 
tail, which, as she pours out her heart's blood, beats 
the billows and churns them into crimsoned foam. Not 
less formidable sometimes are the last, the dying strug- 
gles of sin. What says our Lord ? " The kingdom of 
heaven suffers violence, and the violent take it by 
force and it happens there as with a beleaguered city 
at the storming — the hardest fight is in the breach ; 
the battle rages fiercest just before it ceases, and with 
a few more strokes, the city is entered, and the prize 
is won. 

How truly may it be said to the most experienced, 
aged, honoured Christian, as the Lord said to Joshua, 
Thou art old and well stricken in years, and yet there 



262 



THE CHRISTIAN'S WORK. 



is mucli laud to be possessed. Sin still has more or 
less power over you, and it should have none ; your 
corruptions are wounded, dying of mortal wounds, but 
they are not yet dead ; your affections are set on heaven ; 
yet how much are they still entangled with earthly 
things ; your heart, like the needle of a sailor's com- 
pass to its pole, points to Christ, but how easily is it 
disturbed, how tremblingly and unsteady does it often 
point to him ; your spirit has wings, but how short are 
its flights, and how often, like a half fledged eaglet, has 
it to seek the nest, and come back to rest on the Kock 
of Ages ; your soul is a garden in which, when north 
and south winds blow to call out its spices, Christ 
delights to walk, but with many a beautiful flower, how 
many vile weeds are there — ready to spring up, and ill 
to keep down ; requiring constant care and watching. 

Indeed, so many impurities and imperfections cleave 
to the best of us, that it seems to me a change must 
take place at death only second to what took place at 
conversion. The holiness of the holiest man, how far 
short it is of the holiness of heaven ! A great deal of 
sin is in every case left behind with the body, to be, 
thank God, for ever buried in its grave ; and could 
we see the spirit it its departure, as Elisha saw his as- 
cending master, we should see a mantle of impurity 
and imperfection dropt from the chariot that bears it 
to the skies. In the very hour of death, therefore, the 
Spirit of God must crown all his other labours with a 
rapid and extraordinary work of sanctifying. How 
that is done, is a mystery which we cannot fathom 
but it would seem as if grace, like the species of cereus 



THE CHRISTIAN S WORK. 



263 



which opens its gorgeous flower only at midnight, burst 
out into fullest beauty amid the darkness of a dying 
hour. It is enough for us to know that God will per- 
fect that which concerneth us ; that he will bring us 
safely home ; and that no vessel chartered for glory, 
shall be lost at the harbour's mouth. It takes one 
whole summer, with its showers and sunshines, to ripen 
the fields of corn ; it takes five hundred summers to 
bring the oak to full maturity ; but he at whose word 
the earth sprang into being, bearing on its bosom 
loaded orchards, and golden harvests, and clustering 
vines, the tall palm, and the gigantic cedar, woman in 
full blown charms, and man in his perfect manhood, he 
with whom one day is as a thousand years, and a thou- 
sand years as one day, is able in the twinkling of an 
eye to complete and crown the work of his grace. He 
will do it. He that began a good work in you will 
carry it on to the day of the Lord Jesus ; and thus ap- 
parelled in the righteousness of his Son, and wholly 
sanctified by the power of his Spirit, his saints shall 
appear before him — " not having spot, or tmnkle, or 
any such thing." 



" If thou hast run with the footmen, and they have wearied thee, then 
how canst thou contend with horses ? and if in the land of peace, 
wherein thou trustedst, they wearied thee, then how wilt thou do in 
the swelling of Jordan ?"— Jer. xii. 5. 

One of the greatest battles on record was fought 
and won, seven hundred years ago, by the merchants 
and artizans of Brussels against the arms of France. 
Reduced by famine to the greatest straits, the city one 
evening opened her beleaguered gates, not to admit the 
enemy, but that such as were able to carry arms might 
march out — to make their last throw in the bloody 
game of war. Their resolution strung to the highest 
tension, they were resolved to do or die. They had it 
from the lips of their wives and daughters that, what- 
ever were the result of to-morrow's battle, they should 
be safe from the violence of a brutal soldiery. If their 
fathers and brothers conquered, they would be at the 
gates to receive them in their arms : if fortune declar- 
ed for the enemy, still they had a refuge — the last re- 
fuge of the oppressed, the grave. They would fire the 
city, and throwing themselves into the flames, leave 
nought to the spoiler but blackened corpses, and smok- 
ing ruins. This forlorn hope, on leaving their families, 
carried only as much food as would suffice for one meal* 

'264) 



THE CHRISTIANS TRIUMPH. 



265 



If God was pleased to bless their arms, they would get 
plenty more ; on the other hand, if the day was lost, 
they would need no more. The night, which was fall- 
ing down when they came in sight of the banners and 
tents of France, was spent by their enemies in riot and 
carousings. It was spent by these wise, brave burgh- 
ers in seeking rest for to-morrow's fight ; and by their 
leaders, in making the most skillful arrangements. 

The men of Brussels rose with the dawn, and took 
what was to some, and might be to all, their last earthly 
meal. Knowing that they, a few rude townsmen, had 
no chance against the magnificent host of France un- 
less God helped the fight for home, and wife, and chil- 
dren, and liberty, they cried to Heaven for help. Ar- 
rayed in sacred vestments, with the symbols of salva- 
tion in their hands, the priests went up and down their 
ranks. Every man made confession, and received the 
rites administered to the dying. The solemn service 
concluded, they rose from their knees ; closed their 
ranks ; levelled their pikes ; and wheeling round so as 
to throw the glare of the sun in the eyes of the enemy, 
came down on their lines an avalanch of steel. The 
charge was irresistible. They bore cuirass and knight- 
ly lance before them ; and these base-born traders scat- 
tered the chivalry of France, like smoke before the 
wind, and chaff before the whirlwind. 

Such is a story of the olden time, as told by Frois- 
sart in his Chronicles. It illustrates a remarkable 
saying of one who fought many battles, and seldom, if 
ever, lost any. Asked to what he attributed his re- 
markable success, he replied, I owe it, under God, 
12 



266 



THE CHRISTIANAS TRIUMPH. 



to this, that I made it a rule never to despise an 
enemy. 

To what warfare is this rule so applicable as to the 
Christian's ; to the battles of the faith ; to those con- 
flicts which the believer is called to wage with Satan, 
the world and the flesh ? His past experience, a care- 
ful examination of the circumstances in which he has 
failed, and of those also in which he has conquered, 
cannot fail to prove that. Those works are commonly 
best done which we count most difficult. The athlete 
leaps the highest who bends the lowest to the spring ; 
and Satan proves to be least when he looks most for- 
midable. Thus " stand in awe, and sin not," are joined 
as cause and effect. For the way to sin not is just to 
stand in awe ; never to feel too secure ; never to un- 
derrate the difficulty of a duty ; never, be it the world, 
the devil, or the flesh, to despise the power of our 
enemy. Is not that just what Scripture teaches in 
these words — What I say unto you, I say unto all, 
Watch ; again, Pray that ye enter not into temptation ; 
again, Put on the whole armour of God ; again, Having 
ione all, Stand ? 

Extremes meet. This adage applies as well to 
spiritual as to common things ; and thus it is that des- 
pondency — the fear that we shall never succeed, by 
depressing a man's energies, and paralysing hu power, 
lead to disaster, almost as certainly as oresumptuous 
pride. For example : Saul owed his defeat more to 
the malign influence of the witch of Endor than to the 
arms of the Philistines. When she buried hopr in his 
brave heart, she dug his grave ; victory vanishe 1 with 



THE CHRISTIAN'S TRIUMPH 



267 



the mantled phantom ; and when Saul, pale, haggard, 
his spirits depressed, his courage sunken as his eye. 
went to fight, he had not a chance. The battle of Gil- 
boa was lost before it was begun. Despair, in truth, 
is about as bad a leader as presumption — this is Scylla, 
that Charybdis ; and both extremes, the rock, horrid 
with breakers, and the glassy but treacherous whirl 
pool, are alike fatal. Here, how true the heathen pro- 
verb, The middle is the safe passage! In spiritual 
matters we are, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit 
and of the Word of God, to steer right between the 
two ; and, to help you forward in this safe and blessed 
course, let me explain and answer the question, " If ye 
have run with the footmen, and they have wearied you, 
how will ye contend with horses ?" — in other words, 
if you have not done the less, how can you do the 
greater ? 

The difficulty implied by this proverb appears — 

I. In this, That man is less a match for Satan now 
than when Satan, at their first encounter, proved 
himself more than a match for man. 

In Eden, our first parents and the tempter were not 
unequally matched. Belonging to a superior race of 
intelligent beings, he had more mental, but they, on 
the other hand, being still innocent, were superior to 
him in moral power. Thus Eve, like one who, though 
he brings less strength, brings better weapons to the 
field of battle than his enemy, might be considered as 
a fair match for the devil. Yice cannot look virtue 
in the face, any more than an owl can the sun ; and, 



268 



THE CHRISTIAN'S TRIUMPH. 



innocence still, imperfect though it be, seems to pos- 
sess such power over guilt as the eye of a man has 
over a lion — the savage beast quails before his fixed 
and steady look. Clad in his panoply of heavenly 
armour, it was Eve's own fault that the simplicity of 
the dove did not prove more than a match for the 
cunning of the serpent ; but it did not ; and you 
know the result. It burns in the flames of hell ; it 
sounded from the cross in the groans of Calvary ; it 
rises in the corruptions of our degenerate nature ; it 
is written on the blotted pages of every man's history ; 
ft shall be engraven on every man's tomb. Beneath 
its burden the whole creation groaneth, and is in pain 
until now ; waiting for redemption till he come who 
shall free the prisoners and lead captivity captive ; 
and crying, Lord, how long, holy and true ? Come, 
Lord Jesus, come quickly ! why tarry thy chariot 
wheels ? 

Defeated in Eden, where now can a man look for 
success ? overcome in our state of innocence, what 
hope, it may be asked, remains for us in one of guilt ? 
The bravest soldiers hang back from the breach, 
where, as it belches forth fire and smoke, they have 
seen the flower of the army fall ; mowed down like 
grass. The bravest seamen dread the storm which 
has wrecked, with the stout ship, the gallant life-boat 
that had gone to save its crew ; men saying, If with 
her brave hands and buoyant power she, whelmed 
among the waves, could not live in such a sea, what 
cbance for common craft? And what chance for us 
where our first parents perished ? how can guilt stand 



THE CHRISTIAN'S TRIUMPH. 260 

where innocence fell ? How can poor, fallen creatures, 
such as we are, expect to conquer an enemy who has 
won his accursed victories in heaven as well as on 
earth, and triumphed over the innocence both of angels 
and of men ! Summoned to a holy war, we are called 
to fight the good fight, and to resist the devil ; but is 
it not with us as if I were to raise a sick man from 
his bed, and when the earth was spinning round to his 
dizzy eyes, bid him fight an enemy that had conquered 
him when health bloomed on his palid cheek, and 
strength lay in the arm that hangs powerless by his 
side? What chance have infants against the lion 
that, with bristling mane, lashing tail, and flashing 
eyes, stands with his paw on the bleeding body of 
their mother ? When traitors swarm in her streets, 
what hope has the city to resist the foe that in loyal 
days scaled, and breached, and carried its walls? 
We have been reduced to slavery ; and did bonds- 
men ever win where freemen lost? Hope there is 
none for us out of Christ. Our only hope is DavM's, 
that day, when, on presenting himself to do battle 
with the giant, Goliath, feeling insulted to be bearded 
by a beardless boy, exclaimed, " Am I a dog, that thou 
comest to me with staves!' 7 Come on, rush to thy 
doom ; and " I will give thy flesh unto the fowls of 
the air and the beasts of the field." Whereupon the 
stripling, strong in faith, replied, " Thou comest to 
me with a sword, and a spear, and a shield ; but I 
come unto thee in the name of the Lord God of hosts." 
And but that we go to battle with our spiritual ene- 
mies, and him who conquered the innocence of Eden, 



270 the christian's triumph. 



in the name of Jesus, and backed " by the Lord God 
of hosts," we had had no answer to the question, " If 
thou hast run with the footmen, and they have wearied 
thee, how wilt thou contend with horses ?" 

II. If we were overcome by sin ere it had grown into 
strength, we are now less able to resist it. 

The morning, with every flower glistening in dews, 
the fresh air loaded with perfumes, the hills bathed in 
golden light, the skies ringing with the song of larks, is 
beautiful. Beautiful as is the morning of day, so is that 
of life. Fallen though we are, there remains a purity, 
modesty, ingenuousness, and tenderness of conscience, 
about childhood, that looks as if the glory of Eden yet 
lingered over it, like the light of day on hill-tops at 
even, when the sun is down. The word of God, no 
doubt, declares infants as well as others to be dead in 
trespasses and sin : and I don't say but there is death ; 
still it is like death before the body has grown stiff 
and cold, the colour of life fled the cheek, or decay 
effaced its beauty. Look at a little child! It does 
not behave itself unseemly ; does not rejoice in in- 
iquity ; does not glory in its shame ; nor stand with un- 
blushing front before a shocked and wondering world 
to avow its vileness, and proclaim itself seducer 
liar, murderer. Blushes mantle on its cheek ; and it 
has a conscience in its bosom, which protests against 
thoughts, and words, and actions, that men live to 
boast of. Sins, afterwards committed without com- 
punction, and rolled as a sweet morsel under the 
tongue, are followed in early life by fears and un- 



THE CHRISTIAN'S TRIUMPH. 271 



easy feelings, stings of conscience and bitings of re- 
morse ; and the child is no more like what the man 
becomes, than a rose-bud, bursting its sheath, breath- 
ing odours, and opening into beauty, is like that vile, 
soiled, and rotten thing which I have seen hanging 
on the leafless branch— a nest of worms, and smelling 
rank of decay. It has wrung our heart, as we looked 
on some lost, and loathsome creature — the pest of 
society, and the shame of her sex — to think of the 
days when she was a smiling infant in a mother's 
happy arms, or, ignorant of evil, lisped long-forgotten 
prayers at a mother's knee ; when her voice rose in 
the psalms of family worship, or of the house of God, 
like the song of a seraph in the skies. Alas ! " How 
is the gold become dim? how is the most fine gold 
changed ?" 

Justifying this sad description, The wicked are 
estranged from the womb ; they go astray as soon 
as they be born, speaking lies — alas ! how soon does 
sin cloud life's brightest dawn ! But then if, in early 
life, when sin was comparatively weak and conscience 
was comparatively strong, we were so easily, and so 
often overcome by temptation, what hope for us, when 
this order is reversed ; when conscience has become 
weak, and sin grown strong ? If we were no match 
for the cub, how shall we conquer the grown lion ? 
If we had not strength to pull out the sapling, how 
are we to root up the tree ? If it exceeded our ut- 
most power to turn the stream near its mountain 
cradle, how shall we turn the river that, red, roar- 
ing, swollen, pou^ its flood on to the sea? If we 



272 the christian's TRIUMPH. 



could not arrest the stone on the brow of the hill, 
how shall we stop it when, gathering speed at every 
turn, and force at every bound, it rushes into the 
valley with resistless might ? Sin gaining such power 
by time and habit, " If we have run with the footmen 
and they have wearied us, how shall we contend with 
horses ?" Spirit of God ! but for thy gracious aids 
the attempt were hopeless. 

Not without the strongest reason does the wise man 
address himself to the young, saying, " Remember now 
thy Creator in the days of thy youth for the diffi- 
culty of resisting the bad and corrupt passions of our 
nature grows with man's growth, and strengthens with 
his strength. Some things become weak and wear 
away by use ; but not the power of sin. Like the 
muscles of a blacksmith's brawny arm, the more it is 
used the stronger it grows ; and thus all sinners, as 
well as " seducers, wax worse and worse." The dead 
become twice dead ; the dry bones more dry. Every 
new act of sin casts up an additional impediment in 
our way of a return to virtue, and to God ; until that 
which was once only a molehill swells into a mountain 
that nothing can remove, but the faith at whose bid- 
ding mountains are removed, and cast into the depths 
of the sea. Overcome of sin when it was weak, how 
could we hope to overcome sin when it is strong, but 
that faith, undaunted by difficulties, and calling to our 
aid Him with whom nothing is impossible, despairs of 
nothing — saying with Paul, I can do all things through 
Christ who strengtheneth me. 

Yes — they that are accustomed to do evil may learn, 



THE CHRISTIANS TRIUMI H. 273 



and have learned, to do well ; the Ethiopian has 
changed his skin, and the leopard his spots. Down 
into that crimson fountain, and it is done ! With the 
blood of Christ to wash away the darkest guilt, and 
the Spirit of God to sanctify the vilest, and strengthen 
the weakest nature, I despair of none. Too late ! It 
is never too late. Even old age, tottering to the grave 
beneath the weight of seventy years, and a great load 
of guilt, may retrace its steps, and begin life anew. 
Hope falls like a sunbeam on the hoary head. I have 
seen the morning rise cold and gloomy, and the sky 
grow thicker, and the rain fall faster, as the hours wore 
on ; yet, ere he set in night, the sun, bursting through 
the heavy clouds, has broke out to illumine the land- 
scape, and shed a flood of glory on the dying day. 

III. Shew how these difficulties are to be overcome. 

The Spirit and the flesh, grace and nature, heavenly 
and earthly influences, are sometimes so fairly balanced, 
that like a ship with wind and tide acting on her with 
equal power, but in opposite directions, the believer 
makes no progress in the divine life. He loses head- 
way. He does not become worse, but he grows no 
better ; and it is all he can do to hold his own. Some- 
times, indeed, he loses ground ; falling into old sins. 
Temptation comes like a roaring sea squall, and, find- 
ing him asleep at his post, drives him backward on his 
course ; and further now from heaven than once he 
was, he has to pray, Heal my backsliding, renew me 
graciously, love me freely — For thy name's sake, 
Lord, pardon mine iniquity, for it is great. 
12* 



274 the christian's triumph. 

The state of the most advanced Christians is often 
very unsatisfactory. The affections that, true as the 
needle to the pole, should point steadily to heaven, go 
wheeling about like a weather vane, that shifts with 
shifting winds. Sinful thoughts and bad desires spring 
up, thick as weeds in showery weather — faster than we 
can cut them down ; and every attempt to keep the 
heart pure, holy, heavenly, ends in miserable failure — 
extorting the question, " Who is sufficient for these 
things ? " It is disheartening ! We go into our gar- 
dens, and see the flowers growing into beauty by sunny 
day, and silent night ; week by week of autumn, the 
fields around us assume a more golden tint, ripening 
for the harvest ; and year by year, childhood in our 
homes rise into youth, and youth into bearded man- 
hood ; — but our poor souls seem standing still. There 
is no appreciable progress ; and we begin to ask, Are 
we never to grow fit for heaven ? Is our hope of it 
but a pious dream, a beautiful delusion ? Daily called 
to contend with temptation, the battle often goes 
against us ; in these passions, and tempers, and old 
habits, The sons of Zeruiah are too strong for us. Not 
that we do not fight. That startling cry, The Philis- 
tines are on thee, Samson ! rouses us ; we make some 
little fight ; but too often resisting only to be con- 
quered, we are ready to give up the struggle — saying, 
It is useless ; and like Saul in Gilboa's battle, to throw 
away sword and shield. We would ; but that, cheered 
by a voice from above, and sustained by hope in God's 
grace and mercy, we can turn to our souls to say, Why 
art thou cast down, my soul ; why is my spirit dis- 



THE CHRISTIAN'S TRIUMPH. 275 



quieted within me ? — rise ; resume thy arms ; renew 
the combat ; never surrender — Hope thou in God, for 
I shall yet praise him who is the health of my counten 
ance, and my God. 

To encourage you, let me shew two cases — those of 
Peter and Abraham — where they who had been over- 
come by the lesser, overcame the greater trial ; and, 
to use the language of my text, though wearied by the 
footmen, nobly and successfully contended with horses. 
No doubt we do not stand on the same platform with 
these distinguished saints ; we are not Peter or Abra- 
ham. Still their God is our God for ever and ever — 
the same yesterday, to-day, and to-morrow ; and what 
he did once, he can do again. His ear is not heavy 
that he cannot hear ; nor his hand shortened that it 
cannot save. 

1. Look at the case of Peter. 

The arena where he is matched with footmen is a 
judgment hall. A woman — no proud Jezebel, plotting 
Naboth's murder ; no Athaliah, ambitious in her grey 
hairs of a throne, and wading to the ancles in the blood 
of her children ; no Herodias, gazing with grim satis- 
faction on John's gory head — has dragged the disciple 
to her presence ; and fixing on him her malignant eye, 
asserts, Thou also art one of them ! It is a humble 
maid, come perhaps to cast some billets on the fire, who 
without intending to hurt him, or without any object- 
other than to satisfy her curiosity, catches a sight of 
Peter's face as the rising flame throws it ruddy glare on 
the crowd around, and says, Thou also art one of them ! 
Coward ! He denies it ; denies his master ; asseve- 



276 



THE CHRISTIAN'S TRIUMPH. 



rates with oaths, I know not the man. What a fall 
was there ! He ran with the footmen, and they wea- 
ried him. 

The scene changes ; and as if Providence kindly in- 
tended that Peter should win back his laurels on the 
field where they were lost, the arena is again a place 
of judgment. He stands at the bar of stern, blood- 
thirsty judges. Far more severely tried, he is now 
equal to the occasion. His courage mounts with the 
danger, as the eagle with the violence of the storm. 
No denying of his master now ! no repudiating now 
of his discipleship ! They have got no sneaking cow- 
ard, but a lion at bay. Accused, he turns the accuser ; 
he charges these judges with murdering the Lord of 
glory ; and boldly tells them that Jesus he has preach- 
ed, and, let them do their worst, Jesus he will preach 
— obeying God rather than man. He had run with 
the footmen, and they had wearied him ; see there how 
nobly he contends with horses ! 

2. Look at the case of Abraham. 

We would touch the patriarch's fault lightly, but 
that he nobly redeemed it ; and that, like the dark 
back-ground of a picture, it brings out the faith which 
shone so brilliant in his greatest trial. Woman's 
beauty has often been her snare ; supplying food to 
vanity, and exposing her honour to the seducer's wiles. 
But Sarah's beauty was her husband's snare. About 
to sojourn in the land of Egypt, he looked on her face 
with alarm — not with pleasure now ; saying to himself, 
These bright eyes shall be my death ; throwing their 
witchery on the king, he will covet my treasure ; to get 



THE CHRISTIAN'S TRIUMPH. 277 

at this tempting fruit, as when axes are levelled against 
a stately palm, they will hew down the tree. Alarmed 
at such thoughts, frightened by a shadow, his fear of 
man got the better of his faith in God. As in other 
cases bringing a snare, it prompted, and his tongue 
taught this lie, at least mean shuffle and equivocation, 
to Sarah, Say thou art my sister ; and it may be well 
with me for thy sake. He ran with the footmen, and 
they wearied him. 

Look again ; the scene has shifted. Once more he 
is on his trial. The arena is a mountain summit. He 
has to contend not with footmen, but with horses here. 
God has said, " Take thy son, thine only son, Isaac, 
whom thou lovest ; and offer him for a burnt-offering 
on a mountain that I will tell thee of! " Offer Isaac ! 
make a burnt-offering of my boy, my son, my only son ; 
bind him to the horrid altar ; and a father's hands to 
bind him ! Never, in father's or mother's breast, was 
faith put to so great a trial. Contend with horses ? 
He has to contend with passions stronger far than 
horses ; with love strong as death, love that many 
waters cannot quench. A thousand devils whispered in 
his ear, Do it not ! and nature, turning traitor to her 
God, rose in all her might to forbid the bloody deed ; 
protesting that God could never, never demand such a 
barbarous sacrifice. Yet see him! He lays Isaac 
gently on the altar, and tenderly kisses him. He 
bandages his eyes. How his hand shakes as he turns 
the cord round his trembling limbs ! His heart is like 
to break ; yet, though turning away his head from the 
sight, he now takes the knife. Would God permit, he 



278 the christian's teiumph. 



would bury it up to the haft in his own bosom. Now 
look there — with an arm uplifted, but arrested from 
plunging it into Isaac's, on that mountain summit he 
stands on the highest pinnacle of faith that man ever 
stood on. In that grand and terrible spectacle see, 
God helping them, how those who have been wearied 
by the footmen may contend with horses ! 

" There were giants in those days," as is said of the 
men before the flood. No doubt. But it was God 
that made them strong ; and all that Peter and Abra- 
ham did, they did through the power of his might. 
He strengthened them with all might by his Spirit in 
the inner man ; and though these great actors have 
left the stage for lesser men to occupy, the might, the 
power remain. God remains ; staying with his Church 
to make good these glorious promises, My grace is suf- 
ficient for thee — worm Jacob, thou shalt thresh the 
mountains — One man shall chase a thousand — He that 
is feeble, not he that is strong, he that is feeble among 
them shall be as David ; and the house of David shall 
be as God — The light of the moon shall be as the light 
of the sun, and the light of the sun shall be sevenfold, 
in the day that the Lord bindeth up the breach of his 
people, and healeth the stroke of their wound. 

With such promises, and with the assurance of his 
presence, may we not contend with horses ; overcome 
the greatest difficulties ; go down undaunted even into 
the swellings of Jordan ? Great swellings these ! 
There our sins assume a magnitude, and our guilt a 
blackness, and our salvation — out of Christ — a hope- 
lessness, they wear nowhere else 1 The swellings of 



THE CHRISTIAN'S TRIUMPH. 279 

Jordan : These are not the pains of parting, nor the 
pangs of dying, nor the mortal struggle, terrible as it 
seems ; but guilty memories of the past that, like thun- 
der clouds, rise fast, and thick, and black, and terrible 
on the soul, and the prospect of a judgment near, just, 
irrevocable, eternal. I have seen these cast a solemn 
shadow on the face of the holiest, as if the righteous 
were scarcely saved. And what shall we do in these 
swellings of Jordan ? Do ? What can we do, but 
cling to Jesus ? Lay your sins on Jesus ; cast your 
fears on Jesus ; die with your head pillowed on his 
"bosom ; and, your last conscious gaze fixed on his 
cross, breathe out your mortal life in words like 
these — 

" Jesus, lover of my soul, 
Let me to thy bosom fly, 
"When the nearer waters roll, 
When the tempest still is nigh. 

" Hide me, my Saviour ! hide, 
Till the storm of life is past ; 
Safe into the haven guide ; 
Ob ! receive my soul at last* 



Ski GMttfow't § Htitntt. 

" I waited patiently for the Lord." — Psalm xli. 

Patience, as it is not apathy, is not sluggishness, 
or indolence. There are circumstances which justify 
haste. For example, we do not walk, but rush out of 
a house on fire, or falling, a sudden ruin. If any one 
Ms been poisoned, or, having burst a blood-vessel, is 
bleeding to death, we do not go, we run for a physi- 
cian ; and, hardly taking time to tell our story, hurry 
him off to the scene of danger. Such impatience, if so 
it can be called, is even more required in the interests 
of the soul than of the body. Its case is far more 
urgent ; its danger is very much greater : hours here 
may involve the loss of eternity — nay one moment too 
late, may be for ever too late. 

Who waits most patiently on the Lord may be 
placed in circumstances where the more he believes he 
will be the busier ; and the more he hopes, the more 
will he hurry. Woke at dead of night by a loud 
knocking at the door, and by Lot, with terror in his 
face, and quick speech on his tongue, crying, " Up ; get 
ye out of this place ; for the Lord will destroy this 
city," his sons-in-law lay still, and laughed the old man 
to scorn ; thinking him mad — wrong in the head. At 

(280) 



THE CHRISTIAN'S PATIENCE. 281 

any rate, they would wait a little ; it would be time 
enough to seek safety when they saw danger ; and 
thus, like many, they perished through unbelief. So 
almost did Lot ; like many also, better at giving ad- 
vice than taking it ; administering wise counsel than 
practising it. And he had perished, but that the an- 
gels hurried the lingerer out of the city, crying, as 
God does to all sinners in the way of destruction, and 
to all saints in the way of temptation, Escape for thy 
life ; look not behind thee. 

What a contrast to Lot with his defective faith and 
lingering steps, David, that day when he went to meet 
Goliath ? Never were two antagonists more unequally 
matched — the one a giant, the other a mere youth ; the 
one accustomed to war, and crowned with its bloody 
laurels, the other familiar only with the quiet scenes 
of pastoral life ; the one sheathed from head to heel 
in polished mail, the other apparelled in a shepherd's 
dress ; the one shaking a spear shafted like a weaver's 
beam to send it whistling through the air, and stake 
its victim to the ground, the other with no weapon 
more formidable than a few smooth stones and a sling. 
Yet, and just because he had faith in God, David was 
in a sense impatient. Eager for battle, burning to re- 
deem God's honour and wipe out this disgrace from 
the hosts of Israel, when the giant, incensed at what 
he took to be the stripling's insolence, stalked forth, 
David, we are told, ran to meet him. 

Patient waiting for the Lord is quite consistent with 
boldness in design, and energy and promptitude in ac- 
tion ; and only inconsistent with those unbelieving, 



282 THE CHRISTIAN'S PATIENCE. 



impetuous, ungovernable, headlong, headstrong pas» 
sions which breed impatience, and lead people to run 
before providence instead of waiting on it. Of this 
let me give you two examples. 

I. By contrast illustrate what it is to wait on the Lord. 

1. Look at the conduct of Abraham. 

On his leaving Ur of the Chaldeans to wander a 
pilgrim in the land of Canaan, God had promised that 
he should become the father of a great nation. " Lift 
up thine eyes," he said to him one day, " and look north- 
ward, and southward, and eastward, and westward." 
And when Abraham had done it, swept the wide hori- 
zon from the hills of Moab beyond Jordan to the sea 
that lies gleaming in the bay of Carmel, and from the 
snows of Lebanon to the sands of the burning desert, 
" All the land," said the Lord, " thou seest, to thee will 
I give it, and to thy seed after thee ; and I will make 
thy seed as the dust of the earth, so that if a man can 
number the dust of the earth, then shall thy seed also 
be numbered : Arise and walk through the land, I will 
give it unto thee." Well, years elapse after that. 
Time rolls on, and effaces Sarah's beauty ; writing 
wrinkles on both their brows. Old age has stolen on 
them, and their bed is childless. Where now the hope 
of seed like the dust of the earth ? It is the privilege 
of faith to hope against hope. Abraham should have 
believed that he who formed a child in the Virgin's 
womb, and who, as Jesus said, could of the stones of 
the street raise up children to Abraham, would cause 
fruit to grow on the withered tree j and sooner change 



THE CHRISTIAN'S PATIENCE 283 



the ordinary course of nature than fail of his word. 
But, at Sarah's suggestion, he formed an unhallowed 
alliance with an Egyptian ; thereby sowing dissension 
in his house, and setting an example to his descendants 
which the best of them were too prone to follow. 
Though the father of the faithful, in this he ran before 
providence, not waiting patiently on the Lord. 

2. Look at the conduct of Rebekah. 

" Two nations," said God to her, " are in thy womb ; 
and the one people shall be stronger than the other 
people ; and the elder shall serve the younger." She 
gave birth to twins ; and the boys grew up. Esau, the 
elder of the two, became his father's, and Jacob his 
mother's, favourite. She had God's promise that her 
favourite should inherit the blessing, and by the prior- 
ity it gave, become the head of his father's house. 
But Rebekah could not see how this was to be. Foi 
Esau was his father's best-loved son. It was for him 
the blind man groped ; it was the manly voice and 
bounding step of the hunter lad, he listened for, and 
liked best to hear. The blinder and weaker the old 
man grows, he clings the more to Esau ; and the longer 
the current of his deep love runs, it cuts a deeper chan- 
nel in his heart. How is Jacob to get the blessing? 
Forgetting that, though we cannot bend old trees like 
saplings, God can, and that he turns the hearts of men 
as he turneth the rivers of water, Rebekah becomes 
impatient ; and taking steps to anticipate God's time, 
lays her hand on the wheel of providence. Rash wo 
man, she will hurry on the event. Dressing up her 
favourite like Esau, putting a lie into his mouth, teach' 



284 the christian's patience. 

ing him how to play the hypocrite, she sends Jacob in 
to wait on his poor old father ; and that tent, where 
the blind man sat, became the scene of a crime which 
blasted for ever their domestic peace ; dogged the 
heels of Jacob to his grave ; left a deep stain on the 
good man's memory ; planted sharp thorns in his pil- 
low ; and though forgiven of God, was terribly 
avenged that day when his own sons played him as 
foul a trick, and with the rent, bloody robe of Joseph 
before his eyes, he cried, " I will go down into the 
grave unto my son mourning." Rebekah and he ran 
before providence ; they did not wait patiently on the 
Lord. 

II. Look at David's own example of waiting on the 
Lord. 

It was impatience, springing from unbelief, which 
lost Saul his kingdom. A merchant in times of bad 
trade, or other trying circumstances, instead of trust- 
ing in God to bring him through his difficulties, or sus- 
tain him under them, has recourse to fraud ; or a poor 
man, instead of trusting providence with the supply of 
his wants, and committing his children to the care of 
him who hears the young ravens cry, hard pinched and 
pressed, puts out his hand to steal. And so, hard 
pressed by the Philistines, and wearied waiting for 
Samuel's return, that he might offer sacrifice, and take 
counsel of God, Saul did a forbidden thing. He as* 
sumed to himself the priestly office which, king as he 
was, he had no right or authority to do — in his impa 
tience thus sinning against the Lord. The smoke of 



THE CHRISTIAN'S PATIENCE. 285 

the profane sacrifice offered by this rash, impetuous 
man, is still floating in a dun cloud up to heaven when 
the Prophet appears — and appears to say, as he points 
to the ashes and the altar, " Thou hast done foolishly : 
now thy kingdom shall not continue " Unhappy and 
unfortunate man ! Saul, like many others who do not 
wait patiently on the Lord, in seeking to save his for- 
tune, took the way to lose it. 

Was he tempted to yield to impatience ; how much 
more, and oftener, was his illustrious successor ? On 
that day David was sent for and called from the flock 
to meet Samuel in his father's house, and wondering 
what they wanted with a lad like him, came in, shep- 
aerd's crook and pipe in hand, most unlike a future 
iing, to receive on bended knee the royal and sacred 
oil from the prophet's hand, he knew that he was to 
be king. And though, when a fugitive for life, a beg- 
gar for bread, an exile from country, hunted like a 
wild beast from morass to mountain, from the crags 
to the caves in their bowels, his hope of ever reaching 
the throne seemed as faint as that of a vessel of ever 
reaching land that lies dismasted and waterlogged, a 
floating hulk with a starving crew, on the waves of 
a shoreless sea, yet David hoped in the Lord ; and 
patiently waited God's way to put him in possession 
of the kingdom. Twice at least was Saul within his 
reach. Twice, when one blow of his hand would have 
settled the controversy, precipitated the event, and 
put him in immediate possession of the crown, he 
restrained himself — possessing his soul in patience. 
In tnat dark cave, where Saul little knew who stood 



286 the christian's patience. 

beside him, and could touch him, and could have kiHed 
him at a stroke ; and in that field also where the king 
slept, little dreaming who stood over him, and had 
only to give the sign, and the spear of Abishai, al- 
ready raised, pinned him to the ground, David could 
say in truth, "I waited patiently for the Lord." 
Amply rewarded for years of enduring faith and 
hope, when the long looked-for day came that the 
nation called him to the throne, in him patience had 
her perfect work. 

III. Consider how we are patiently to wait on God. 

1. We are to wait patiently on providence in the 
common affairs of life. 

To the neglect of this may be attributed not a few 
of the failures that happen in business. People are 
impatient to get on in life ; to acquire a competency ; 
to be rich. The slow but sure methods by which all 
great things are accomplished in the ordinary course 
of providence are too slow for them ; so they engage 
in rash and reckless schemes — building up a business 
with " untempered mortar," and without a solid foun- 
dation of capital. The result is, that when some 
shock, like an earthquake, shakes the commercial 
world, their fortunes topple over to bury the archi- 
tect in their ruins. 

I do not say that we are to neglect opportunities 
of rising in the world, and improving our circum- 
stances. No. "The hand of the diligent maketh 
rich and riches are good if they come in an honest 
and honourable way, giving us power to do good, to 



THE CHRISTIANAS PATIENCE. 287 



glorify God, to serve Jesus, and to bless humanity. 
Not that I respect a man merely because he is rich — 
not unless he make a noble and pious use of riches. 
But, so far from encouraging indolence, religion fits 
and strengthens us for the ordinary business of life ; 
and teaches us that God is honoured as well by one 
in the humblest employment, whose work is well done, 
as by others who may fill the most exalted stations ; 
just as he is glorified by a glow-worm's lamp, as by a 
blazing sun, by the golden crocus or silver snow-drop, 
as by the tallest, gaudiest, proudest flowers of the 
garden. 

We are to take, and do our part in life's common 
affairs. But the gospel which calls us to that, though 
it does not allow us to cast our work on God, en- 
courages us to cast its cares on him. Cast thy burden 
on the Lord, for he will sustain it ; and in ordinary 
circumstances it is not the work that is the burden. 
On the contrary, work is a blessing. The " burden," 
in other words the curse, of Sodom was " fulness of 
bread and abundance of idleness" — and acting on the 
elements of our depraved nature, like fire on gunpow- 
der, that were enough to make a Sodom, or a Hell of 
any country under the sun. Be it what it may, God 
says, " Cast thy burden on the Lord and he will sus- 
tain it" — " Commit thy ways unto the Lord ; trust 
also in him, and he shall bring it to pass." Waiting 
on him thus, we shall be armed with patience ; and 
find faith in his providence to be a sevenfold shield 
against the cares that are the bane of other men's 
lives, and against temptations that lead many into sin. 



288 THE CHRISTIAN S PATIENCE. 

For, between a worldling torn with anxieties, and 
tossed with fears, and a child of God who waits on 
providence, believing that God reigneth over all, there 
is such difference as there is between a brawling, 
foaming, roaring torrent that, rushing along its rug- 
ged channel, leaps with mad haste from crag to crag, 
a-d the placid river that, with heaven in its bosom, 
a id r 3auty flowering on its banks, pursues a noise- 
less, peaceful, useful course onward to its parent sea. 
Blessed is the man that trusteth in the Lord. It 
is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence 
in man ; it is better to trust in the Lord than to put 
confidence in princes ; for they that trust in the Lord 
shall be as mount Sion which cannot be moved. Wait 
thou on the Lord, and be of good courage, and he 
shall strengthen thine heart. Wait, I say, on the 
Lord. 

2. We are to wait patiently on God under the trials 
of life. 

" Is not this David, the king of the land ? Did they 
not sing one to another of him in dances, saying, Saul 
has slain his thousands, and David his tens of thou- 
sands." Fame, like the sunshine which brings clouds 
of stinging insects from every foul ditch and rotting 
swamp, breeds envy, and sometimes also brings danger 
with it. So David found when these words of the men 
of Gath fell on his startled ear. There, under Achish 
its king, he had sought protection from Saul, and was 
much like the man in prophecy who fled from a bear, 
and a lion met him ; leaned on a wall, and a serpent 
stung him. He had gone down into the den of the 



THE CHRISTIAN'S PATIENCE. 289 

very lioness that he had robbed of her cub ; for Go- 
liath, who had fallen before his sling, had been the 
pride of Gath ; her greatest and most famous son. 
Was this an act of rashness or of faith ? If the latter, 
bravely as David had put out to sea, when the storm 
comes, and the waves rise, and run mountains high, and 
he loses sight of God at the helm, how he trembles ! 
He who went forth so magnanimously against Goliath, 
turns pale with fear before those who neither had the 
giant's stature, nor the giant's strength. Where is now 
the man, whose faith rising with the trial, once said, 
He that delivered me from the paw of the lion and the 
paw of the bear will deliver me from the hand of this 
Philistine ! Where is the man who said, Though an 
host should encamp against me, yet will I not fear ! 
There he is, letting his spittle fall on his beard, scrab- 
bling on the doors of the gate, playing the madman ; 
passing himself off for a fool ! Was this a way for a 
man of God to seek safety in danger ? He took his 
own way of getting out of the trial rather than wait 
patiently for God to deliver him ; and what a contrast 
to his former self, or to the calm and lofty bearing of 
Daniel when he went down, like a hero, into the den 
of lions. He trusted in the Lord — in the time of trial 
he waited on his God ; and was alive next day to send 
up this grand answer to the anxious king, My God 
hath sent his angel, and shut the lions' mouths that 
they have not hurt me. 

And who waits on God piously, prayerfully, patient- 
ly in their trials, shall have the same tale to tell ; the 
same experience — he will shut the lions' mouths, that 
13 



290 THE CHRISTIAN S PATIENCE. 



they shall not hurt them. In the trials he sends or 
permits, God afflicts not willingly ; and has no more 
pleasure in seeing hi? people suffer than a father in the 
tears of the boy he corrects ; than a kind surgeon with 
bloody knife in his hand but tenderness in his heart, in 
his patient's groans Believe that! And tbo^gSi to 
be brought to poverty, to suffer days of languor and 
wakeful nights, to s ; t weeping amid the ruins of your 
fondest domestic hopes, or shed tears of less bitter sor- 
row on the graves of your dead is not joyous but griev- 
ous — very grievous /et believe that ; Oh see God's 
hand in every thing, and believe that all things shall 
work together for ycur good, and you will learn to 
thank him for the bitter as well as for the sweet ; for 
your crosses as well ar for your comforts ; for medicine 
as for meat ; for the withering, biting, winter- frosts 
that kill the weeds as frr the dewy nights and sunny 
days that ripen the fields of corn. The young lions 
may lack and suffer hunger, but they that wait on the 
Lord shall want no good thing. Who is among you 
that feareth the Lord, and obeyeth the voice of hi* 
servant, that walketh in darkness and hath no light ? 
let him trust in the name of the I*>rd, and stay upon 
his God. 

3. We are to wait patiently on God to complete our 
sanctification. We cannot be too earnest, too diligent 
to be sanctified ; we cannot be too importunate, but 
we may be too impatient. Yielding to impatience, we 
may be cast down, and ready to abandon that hope 
which, inspiring courage into the soldier, contributes 
bo much to win the fight ; which sustains the workman 



THE CHRISTIAN'S PATIENCE. 291 

under Ms toil, the sailor on his watch, the mother by 
the sick bed, the most wretched in their misery, and in 
spiritual matters is both a prelude and a means of suc- 
cess. Consider that all great works are of slow pro- 
gress ; all God's works, with exceptional cases, both in 
nature and grace, certainly are so. So when we lapse 
into sin, fall back, make little perceptible progress, we 
should be grieved and sorry ; but not cast down — as 
if God had abandoned either us, or his work of grace 
in our hearts. To the devil standing with his foot on 
us, we are not to yield ourselves captive, but say, Re- 
joice not over me, mine enemy, for when I fall I 
shall rise again ; and to our souls, we are to say with 
David, Why art thou cast down my soul, why is my 
spirit disquieted within me ? hope thou in God, for I 
shall yet praise him, who is the health of my counten 
ance, and my God. Why should the work of the 
Holy Spirit differ from God's other works ? Minutes 
elapse between the dawn, and the day ; days elapse be- 
tween the opening bud, and the full blown flower ; 
months elapse between spring's green blade, and au- 
tumn's golden corn ; years elapse between feeble infan- 
cy, and stalwart manhood ; centuries elapsed between 
the hope begotten in the heart of Eve, and the child 
born of Mary's womb ; and long ages elapsed between 
the period when God laid the foundations of this world, 
and that when, passing up through many stages, it was 
completed, and, man standing on the apex of the 
mighty pyramid, God looked on all the works of his 
hands, and pronounced them to be very good. 
Progress in sanctification may, in fact, be going on 



292 THE christian's patience. 

when you do not see it ; perhaps when it seems going 
back. Take comfort ! " The kingdom of God cometh 
not with observation." The river may appear flowing 
away from the sea, when, but turning round the base 
of some opposing hill, it is pursuing an onward course. 
The ship may appear to be standing away from the 
harbour, when, beating up in the face of adverse winds, 
she is only stretching off on the other tack, and at 
every tack making progress shoreward, though to 
others than seamen she seems to lose it. God works 
in strange, mysterious, silent, unnoticed ways. Silently 
and slowly the water rises that shall one day on a 
sudden burst the dyke, and sweep away the obstacles 
that bar its onward path. Unseen, and unnoticed the 
rains wash away the ground below the stone that shall 
one day, on a sudden leap from its seat, and roll to the 
bottom of the hill. Quietly, and slowly the root grows 
in the fissure that shall one day on a sudden split the 
rock, and reveal its long-continued, silent, secret, but 
mighty power. In a deep, growing sense of the evil 
of sin, produced perhaps by our very fall ; in deeper 
humility, in a low view of ourselves, in greater self- 
abasement ; in a more entire dependence on Christ for 
righteousness, and on the Holy Spirit for the work of 
grace ; in feelings that fill us with pain and regret, and 
godly sorrow, making us eat our passover with bitter 
herbs, the work of sanctification may be going on. 
Like a patient who, through the power of returning 
life, begins to feel and complain of his pains, when we 
think we are growing worse we may actually be grow- 
ing better, and making no little progress when we seem 



THE CHRISTIAN'S PATIENCE. 293 

to be making none. Be not cast down ! Progression 
is the ordinary law of God's government. It is star 
by star that the hosts of night march out ; it is minute 
by minute that morn's grey dawn brightens up into 
perfect day ; it is ring by ring that the oak grows into 
the monarch of the forest ; it is inch by inch, and foot 
by foot that the tide, which bears navies on its bosom, 
comes creeping in on the shore. And, not like justifi 
cation an act, our sanctification being a work of God's 
free grace, is under the same law of progress. More 
or less rapid, it is a thing of steps and stages. There- 
fore, while praying earnestly, and working diligently 
live hopefully and wait patiently. He will perfect thai 
which concerneth us ; and one day bring forth the 
headstone with " shoutings of grace, grace unto it 



"Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?" — Acts ix. 6. 

The darkest scenes of our Lord's history, like a 
cloud with the moon behind it, shine with a silver lin- 
ing. For example, he was born in a stable, where, as 
his dying head was pillowed on thorns, his infant head 
was pillowed on straw ; but then, angels announced 
the event. Way-worn and weary, he sat on Jacob's well 
to beg of a Samaritan a drink of water ; but then, he 
told the astonished woman all her history, and, reading 
her heart, sent her away on flying feet to cry, Come, 
see a man who has told me all things that I have ever 
done. The tumbling sea, the rolling boat, the howling 
wind, the sheets of spray, could not wake him, so worn 
out his frame and deep his slumbers ; but when he was 
awakened and rose up, ah, then, " The waters saw thee, 
God, the waters saw thee he said but the word — 
and moon, and stars, and boat, and girdling mountains 
lay mirrored on a placid lake. At the grave of Laza- 
rus, groaning like a man and weeping like a woman, he 
was overcome of grief ; but then, he overcame death 
there. He stood betrayed in the garden, sold by a 
base disciple for thirty pieces of silver ; but then, there 

(294^ 



THE CHRISTIAN'S LIFE. 



295 



came a hand out of the darkness that dealt his enemies 
a blow which sent them staggering, prostrate to the 
ground. 

Thus, amid the deepest meanness, there was a touch 
of majesty ; and his sun set, as it rose, in glory. He 
died, but who ever died as he ? He closed his life 
amid acts of Godhead ; pronouncing pardon with lips 
pale in death, and with a hand nailed to the cross 
opening heaven to a penitent thief. Thus his glory, 
like lightening, shone brighter in the depths of night 
than in the glare of day. By that, his last, noblest act, 
we are kept from despair. How has it sent us away 
to bend over the dying, and, when eyes were glazed, 
and lips were speechless, to pour into the ear of an ex- 
piring profligate, mercy for the chief of sinners ! The 
case of the thief — most illustrious example of the free- 
ness of the grace of God — teaches us to despair no- 
where, and of none. I fancy there is no man in this 
house of a right mind, but breathes freer as he reads 
it. Brightest trophy of sovereign mercy, and of 
power omnipotent to save, that thief has led the way 
of thousands to the gate of heaven ; and happy the 
man tnat goes in there by the merits of a crucified 
Saviour, though he goes in at the back of a crucified 
thief! 

As illustrious as that case, is the conversion related 
in this passage. Since this, in the sudden arrest and 
conversion of Saul, is as demonstrative of the power 
as that is of the freeness of the grace of God. Stand- 
ing on a platform when the train, shooting out of some 
dark tunnel, dashes by with the rush of an eagle, and 



296 



THE CHRISTIAN S LIFE. 



the roa^ of thunder ; or, seated upon some lofty rock, 
when the mountain wave, driven on by the hurricane, 
and swelling, foaming, curling, bursts, and, passing on 
either side, rushes to roar along the beach — than these 
I know no situation, under heaven, where a man more 
feels his weakness. What hand could stop these flying 
wheels ; or, seizing the billow by its snowy mane, hold 
it back ? Only one — God's own right hand. Great 
miracle that ! A greater is here, in the sudden, instant, 
omnipotent arrest of Saul. With what impetus he 
moved on his career ; leaving Christ's other enemies 
lagging, far behind. A young man, yet stopping 
at no half measures, but going right at the work of 
blood, he had already made his name a terror to the 
whole Church. Dead to pity, nor mother's tears, nor 
infant's cries could move him. A tiger that has tasted 
blood, he has set out one day anew ; and, breathing 
flames and slaughter against the saints, is rushing on 
his prey. In a moment, on a sudden, he is arrested in 
mid-career, changed into a little child ; the lion be- 
comes a lamb ; the leopard lies down beside the kid. 
Saul of Tarsus is another man. The hand that bent 
the arch of heaven has bent his iron will ; and, now 
yielding himself up to Christ, he lies at his feet to say 
in words, to which I would direct your attention in the 
hope that God will bend also every stubborn sinner to 
adopt the language, " Lord "—my God, my Saviour, my 
sovereign, my all in all — " what wilt thou have me to 
do ? " Before turning your attention to this question 
I would remark — 



THE CHRISTIANAS LIFE 



297 



I. All men require to undergo the change that was 
wrought on Saul of Tarsus. 

Did you ever see a dead child laid out by tender 
hands, or even sculptured in cold marble ? With its 
air of calm repose, how beautiful it looks ! Here 
death seems divested of his terrors. It looks so liv- 
ing — I had almost said angel-like — that it needs, as it 
were, but that we should touch it, or speak, to wake it 
up ; and wake again the voice that often cheered a 
mother's heart, and woke her from happy slumbers. 
It is hard to believe that the child is dead ; yet there 
is something harder to believe. With no bad passions 
stamped on its open brow, an infant looks so guiltless, 
and is so guileless ; looks so innocent, and is so igno- 
rant of evil — that kneeling at a mother's feet, with 
sunbeams falling on its golden locks, its little hands 
held up to heaven, its lips lisping a simple prayer, it is 
hard, a very hard thing, to believe that this creature is 
dead in sin ; and that, as storms lie sleeping in the 
calm bosom of the deep, and thunder and lightning in 
the clear blue heavens, a thousand crimes are sleeping 
in that infant bosom. Yet so it is. It is dead in sin ! 
and so are we all — " death has passed on all men, be- 
cause all have sinned." 

If so, you may say, how useless to speak to sinners ! 
Who speaks to the dead ? It seems, in that case, as 
useless to address unconverted men, as it were for me 
to go and take my stand in a churchyard, and, turning 
a grave-stone into a pulpit, address myself to the hol- 
low skulls and mouldering bones around ; and in that 
case preaching seems as mad as a mother's cries when 
13* 



298 



THE CHRISTIANAS LIFE. 



she hangs over the dead, and, calling her boy by name, 
implores him to speak to her. Yet, " I am not mad, 
most noble Festus." Not mad — no ! Have not I seen 
life spring up under almost as unlikely circumstances ? 
No longer ago than last winter, when the ground lay 
covered with lingering snows, and the earth lay bare, 
cold, and wan, like a shrouded corpse, there came a 
sudden thaw, to reveal what it was most curious and 
wonderful to see — a plant, fair herald of the spring, 
had risen up, and leafed, and blown out into full beau- 
ty, beneath its snowy crust. Is God less omnipotent 
in one kingdom than another? My trust is in him 
who has wrought greater wonders in the realms of 
grace than in the fields of nature. 

True, I am no Christ to repair to the grave, saying, 
Lazarus, come forth ! or go to churchyards with voice 
as mighty to awake the dead as the dormant. Still, I 
do not stand here like the king of Israel, when, with 
the letter in his trembling hand, he looked on the 
loathsome leper to exclaim, Am I a god, to kill and 
make alive, that this man is sent to me to be cured of 
his leprosy ? Peter was no " god, to kill or make 
alive," yet he entered the lonely chamber ; walked up 
to the pale, dead body ; knelt by its side ; looked on 
the fixed and filmy eyes ; took the cold hand of Dorcas 
into his own, and saying, " Damsel, arise ! " repeated 
the miracle of Bethany. Was such power imparted 
by God to a human voice ? then why should I, who 
am called to speak to dead souls, have less faith than 
another man, as weak, as fallible, as mortal, who is 
called to speak to a dead body ? God can give you 



THE CHRISTIAN'S LIFE. 



299 



life though you were dead — dead as a grinning skull. 
Therefore I preach in the name of him whose heart is 
love, and whose word is life ; who saith, and it is 
done ; who commandeth, and it standeth fast. " Re- 
pent," therefore, " and be converted, every one of you." 
Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be 
saved. Awake, thou that sleepest, and call on thy 
God ! Awake to salvation ; time is pressing. Awake 
to prayer ; the door is shutting. Awake to work ; the 
night is falling. Awake to flee ; the treacherous tide 
is creeping round and round you. Awake to believe ! 
who does not, is damned ; who does, is saved. 

II. Consider what is implied in this question, which 
every true Christian will be ready to repeat — 
Lord, what wilt thou have me to do ? 

1. It implies that every true convert submits him- 
«olf to the will of Christ. It is not, What will my 
minister or elders, my parents or family, my neighbours 
or friends, the wife of my bosom, or children of my 
heart — but what wilt tlwu have me to do ? This sub- 
mission to another's will is the most difficult of things. 
It is easier, indeed, to bend iron, when it is cold, than 
a stubborn will ; and I will bring you a thousand peo- 
ple in the world who will sooner give up their money 
than their will to others. Does not every parent in 
imparting to his child what is the best part of its edu- 
cation, find that to be the most difficult thing he has to 
do ? I say the best part of education. That is not 
learned at schools, nor found in books ; it does not 
lie in Latin, Greek, or philosophy ; it is not communi* 



800 



THE CHRISTIAN S LIFE. 



cated by teachers. The boy gets it, or should get it, 
at home. The best teacher is the parent ; and the 
best lesson he can impart to his children — the best 
learning he can give them, something far better than 
the largest fortune, is to take them, one by one, and 
break the backbone of their self-will. That lies at 
the foundation of a well-doing family, and makes a 
happy home ; for as one God makes a harmonious uni- 
verse, so one ruler makes a happy house. 

Happy are the children who have early learned the 
self-denial that, saying No, turns a deaf ear to the 
syren's song ; withdraws its eyes from viewing van- 
ity ; and putting its foot on temptation, crushes out 
the spark. This is to command fortune, and secure 
success in life. And happy are the children that, 
early trained in this virtue, have learned to say to a 
wise, good, Christian father, what Jesus said to his — 
" Father, not my will, but thine be done." This sub- 
mission to the will of another, the first, best lesson, 
the battle of the nursery, trains us for the battle of 
the world, and also the Church. And thus are we to 
yield our wills to Christ, not saying what would I 
wish, this one will, or that one say, but What wilt thou 
have me to do ? Say, and I'll do it, though I should 
die for it. Give the word. Speak, Lord, thy servant 
heareth. — In the church, in the place of business, in 
the family, in the world, What wilt thou have me to 
do ? Henceforth, my will be dead. May I have none 
but thine ! 

There is a memorable passage in the history of St. 
Francis that may throw light on this subject. The 



THE CHRISTIANAS LIFE. 



30J 



grand rule of the order which he founded, was implicit 
submission to the superior. Well, one day a monk 
proved refractory. He must be subdued. By order 
of St. Francis, a grave was dug deep enough to hold a 
man ; the monk was put into it ; the brothers began 
to shovel in the earth ; while their superior, standing 
Dy, looked on, stern as death. When the mould had 
reached the wretch's knees, St. Francis bent down, 
and, fixing his eye on him, said, Are you dead yet — is 
your self-will dead — do you yield ? There was no an- 
swer ; down in that grave there seemed to stand a 
man with a will as iron as his own. The signal was 
given, and the burial went on. When at length he 
was buried up to the middle, to the neck, to the lips, 
St. Francis bent down once more to repeat the ques- 
tion, Are you dead yet ? The monk lifted his eye to 
his superior to see in the cold, grey eyes that were 
fixed on him no spark of human feeling. Dead to 
pity, and all the weaknesses of humanity, St. Francis 
stood ready to give the signal that should finish the 
burial. It was not needed ; the iron bent ; he was 
vanquished ; the funeral was stopped ; his will yield- 
ing to a stronger, the poor brother said, " I am dead." 

It has been said that Popery is not so much a con- 
tradiction as a denial of the truth ; or a caricature of 
it. It is true. I would not be dead as these monks to 
any man. The mind and reason which I have got 
from God Almighty are to bend implicitly and blindly 
before no human authority. But the submission I refuse 
to man, Jesus, I give to thee — not wrung from me by 
terror, but won by love ; the result not of fear, but of 



302 



THE CHRISTIAN'S LIFE. 



gratitude. I wish to be dead, not as that monk, but 
as he who said, I am dead ; "I am crucified with 
Christ : nevertheless I live." Saul, the persecuter, was 
dead ; but Paul, the great Apostle, lived. Yet not I, 
he adds, but Christ liveth in me ; and the life which I 
now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of 
God, who loved me, and gave himself for me. 

Were it so with us, had we no will of our own, what 
happy, good, brave, devoted Christians we should be ! 
I have seen a servant come in the morning to his mas- 
ter for orders, and leave to spend the day in executing 
them ; and would every man and woman in this house 
go morning by morning to Christ, saying, with Saul, 
Lord, what wilt thou have me to do this day ? there 
would be no difficulty in getting any amount of money 
for Christ's cause ; any number of people to do his 
work, or to make the utmost sacrifices for his cause. 
Stewards, however thrifty and niggard of their own, 
do not grudge to pay away their master's money ; and 
if I, and you, looked on our gold and silver as Christ's 
we should never hesitate to part with it for him. I 
have heard the plough boy whistling in the furrow, and 
the milk-maid singing at her pail ; and, happy as the 
larks that fill the blue skies above them with their 
ringing carols, they never fretted because they had to 
spend the live-long day in their master's service : nor 
would we to spend the day, the night, years, our lives, 
for Christ, did we but feel ourselves to be his servants. 

I have read with admiration how a troop of cav- 
alry, dashing at the roaring cannon, would rush on to 
death j and how the forlorn-hope would throw them 



THE CHRISTIAN S LIFE. 



303 



selves, with a bound and a cheer, into the fiery breach, 
knowing that should they leave their bodies there — it 
was the will of their commander. Shall they do that, 
obedient, amid the shell and shot of battle, to the will 
of an earthly leader ; and shall Christians do less for 
Christ ? Are you your own ? body or soul, your own ? 
is anything you call yours, your own ? We have one 
Master in heaven ; and if it be true that he bought us 
with his blood ; bought us with his tears ; bought us 
with his thorny crown ; bought us with the agonies of 
Calvary — in the name of God, and truth, and heaven, 
what right has a Christian to himself ? What Chris- 
tian man or woman should not be ready to say, with 
this blessed, happy convert — I have done with myself ; 
I no longer live : Jesus, I have no will but thine ! 
Lord, say what am I to do, and I will do it ; and, tak- 
ing up my cross, follow thee whithersoever thou goest. 
Where thou goest I will go, and where thou lodgest I 
will lodge ; thy people shall be my people, and thy 
God shall be my God ; nought but death — nay, thanks 
be to God, not death — nothing henceforth shall part 
me and thee. 

2. This question implies that every true convert 
feels his individual responsibility. It is not only, 
Lord, what wilt thou have me to do ? but reading the 
question otherwise, Lord, what wilt thou have me to 
do? 

In looking over some vast assembly, with its sea of 
human faces, one reflection naturally suggests itself— 
in a few years they shall be all mouldering in the dust. 
There is another and yet more solemn thought j-'-our 



304 



THE CHRISTIAN'S LIFE. 



minds are carried forward to that day when the graves 
of a thousand generations, having given up their dead, all 
eyes, instead of being turned on a poor mortal man, 
shall, some beaming with joy and others black with des- 
pair, be fixed on the great white throne, and him that 
sits crowned thereon. But there is a third thought that 
presses on me whenever I cast my eyes over some such 
great assembly, and see all these human faces ; it is 
this, — What power is here ! What an immense moral 
power ! 

You may smile at him who stood by the cataract of 
Niagara as, gathering her waters from a hundred lakes, 
she rolled them over with the roar of a hundred thun- 
ders ; and who, instead of being filled with a sublime 
admiration of the scene, began to calculate how much 
machinery that water-power would turn. You may 
smile at that utilitarianism. But it is a serious, sol- 
emn, stirring thought to think how much moral ma- 
chinery all this power now before me could turn for 
good, were every scheming brain, and busy hand, and 
willing heart, engaged in the service of God. I hope 
many of you are active, zealous Christians. But were 
all of us so, — were all Christian men and women so, 
what honor would accrue to God ! what a revenue of 
glory to Jesus Christ, and what invaluable service to 
religion 1 Thousands on thousands might be saved I 

It is impossible to over-estimate, or rather to esti- 
mate the power that lies latent in our churches. 
We talk of the power latent in steam — latent till 
Watt evoked its spirit from the waters, and set the 
giant to turn the iron arms of the machinery. We 



THE CHRISTIAN S LIFE. 



305 



talk of the powers that was latent in the skies till 
science climbed their heights, and, seizing the spirit 
of the thunder, chained it to our surface — abolishing 
distance ; outstripping the wings of time ; and flash- 
ing our thoughts across rolling seas to distant con- 
tinents. Yet what are these to the moral power that 
lies asleep in the congregations of our country, and of 
the Christian world ? And why latent ? Because 
men and women neither appreciate their individual 
influence, nor estimate aright their own individual 
responsibilities. They cannot do everything ; there- 
fore, they do nothing. They cannot blaze like a star ; 
and, therefore, they won't shine like a glow-worm ; 
and so they are content that the few work, and that 
the many look on. Not thus are the woods clothed 
in green, but by every little leaf expanding its own 
form. Nor thus that fields are covered with golden 
corn, but by every stalk of grain ripening its own 
head. Nor thus does the coral reef rise from the 
depths of ocean, but by every little insect building 
its own rocky cell. 

You say, what can I do ? oh, I have no power, nor 
influence, nor name, nor talents, nor money ! Look at 
the coral reef, yonder, where it encircles the fair isles 
that lie like bright gems on the bosom of the Pacific ; 
or, by Australian shores, stretches its unbroken wall 
for a thousand leagues along the sea. How contempt- 
ible the architects ; yet the aggregate of their la- 
bours, mocking our greatest breakwaters, how colos- 
sal ! So it ought to be, and would be, in our con- 
gregations, were every man and every woman to feel 



806 



THE CHRISTIANAS LIFE. 



their own individual responsibilities ; would each go 
to Christ, saying, Lord, what wilt thou have me to 
do ? — would they but rise to the height of their call- 
ing. I know that all cannot be bright and burning 
lights ; that honour is reserved for John Baptist and 
a few such men. But see how that candle in a cot- 
tage window sends out its rays streaming, far through 
the depths of night. Why should not we shine, though 
but like that? — shine, though it should be to illu- 
mine only the narrow walls of our country's humblest 
home. 

Consider how the greatest things ever done on 
earth, have been done by little and little — little agents, 
little persons, and little things. How was the wall 
restored around Jerusalem? By each man, whether 
his house was an old palace or the rudest cabin, build- 
ing the breach before his own door. How was the 
soil of the New World redeemed from gloomy forests ? 
By each sturdy emigrant cultivating the patch round 
his own log cabin. How have the greatest battles 
been won ? Not by the generals, who got their 
breasts blazoned with stars, and their brows crowned 
with honours ; but by the rank and file — every man 
holding his own post, and ready to die on the battle- 
field. They won the victory ! It was achieved by 
the blood and courage of the many ; and I say, if 
the world is ever to be conquered for our Lord, it is 
not by ministers, nor by office-bearers, nor by the 
great, the noble, and mighty ; but by every man and 
woman, every member of Christ's body, being a work- 
ing member ; doing their own work ; filling their own 



THE CHKISTIAN'S LIFE. 



307 



sphere ; holding their own post ; and saying to Jesus, 
Lord, what wilt thou have me to do ? And, indeed, 
when all is done, I venture to say of the busiest man 
that, when he lies on a dying bed, and grim death 
stands over him, his won't be the pleasant reflection, 
How much have I done? but rather the regretful 
thought, How much have I left undone ? how many 
more sinners might I have warned ; how many more 
wretched might I have blessed ; how many more 
naked might I have clothed ; how many more poor 
might I have fed ; how many in hell may be cursing 
my want of faithfulness ; how few in heaven are bless- 
ing God for my Christian, kind fidelity! Ah, the 
best of us will be thankful to be taken to glory, not as 
profitable servants, but as sinners saved. 

3. It implies that the life of the true convert will 
be one of deeds. 

It is not only, Lord, what wilt thou have me to do ; 
and Lord, what wilt thou have me to do ; but this 
also, Lord, what wilt thou have me to do ? to do ; 
not, observe and mark, to believe or to profess, but 
to do. 

I do not stand here to set deeds against doctrines, 
or to exalt the one at the expense of the other. Nor 
have I any sympathy with the fashion, so common 
now-a-days, of setting small value on creeds ; saying, 
It matters little what a man believes, if he does right. 
A man cannot do right unless he believes right. The 
thing is impossible, and as contrary to true philosophy 
as religion, since every effect must have a cause, and 
every stream a spring ; nor can water rise above its 



308 



THE CHRISTIAN'S LIFE. 



fountain, and according to the character of the fomi 
tain, so will be that of the water it discharges. I 
know as well as others that doctrines are not deeds ; 
that dogmas are not lives ; that tbe foundation is not 
the superstructure. Yet that night when the rains 
descend, and the floods rise, and the winds blow, 
happy is the man whose storm-beaten house stands 
founded on a rock ; he may go to bed amid the wild 
uproar of elements, and sleep in peace ; and happy, 
happier still, the man, when the hour comes which 
shall sweep away all confidence in human merits, whose 
hopes of salvation stand on the Rock of Ages, secure 
on the work and death of Christ. 

Calls creeds, as some do, mere skeletons ; and doc- 
trines and dogmas but the bones, and not the living, 
lovely, breathing form of true religion. Still I turn 
round to ask, What were the body without the bones ? 
are not these an essential part of the animal system ; 
maintaining our form erect, imparting to it its symme- 
try, giving these feet their power to walk, these hands 
their power to work ? Not less important the place 
that doctrines hold, the part they play ; and therefore 
I say, hold fast the profession of your faith ; stand fast 
in the truth ; be steadfast, immovable, valiant for the 
truth ; be charitable and courteous, yet earnestly con- 
tending for the faith once delivered to the saints. 

Still faith without works is dead ; dead, in the judg- 
ment of an apostle ; worse than dead, an offence ; a 
cause of disgust like a dead body, stinking in the nos- 
trils of the church and even of the world. Of what 
use is faith without works : doctrine without deeds ? 



THE CHRISTIAN'S LIFE. 



309 



Of no more use than trees without fruit, or clouds with- 
out water. Useless the creeds that do not influence 
our conduct ; the preaching that leads to no practice ; 
the Sabbath that impart no impulse heavenward which 
extends along the running week, nor by the rest of the 
seventh day brace us up for the toils of the six. Prayer 
meetings, sermons, religious services, are good ; but 
they are not, as some make them, banquets where you 
are to enjoy yourselves and gratify your taste — like a 
man who sits down at a sumptuous feast to please his 
palate, and fill his belly. This is not to use but to 
abuse them. Would you see their proper use ? Look 
at yon hardy and sun-burned man, sitting down in his 
cottage to a simple meal ; and rising from the table to 
spend the strength it gives him at the plough, the spade, 
the labours of the field. So Sabbaths with their ser- 
mons, week-days with their occasional religious ser- 
vices, are to strengthen us for work — otherwise our re- 
ligion is no less selfish than the lives of thousands, 
gourmands and epicures, who eat and drink for no 
higher purpose than their own pleasure. Our object 
should be to get strength to do God's work in this 
world ; and to follow, at however groat a distance, the 
steps of Him who, as our pattern as well as propitia- 
tion, went about continually doing good. I am sure 
that Christ is the propitiation of none of whom he is 
not also the pattern ; and that on the last great day 
you shall never be asked what church you attended ? 
to what denomination you belonged ? what was your 
confession or creed ? No ! It is fruit, not leaves nor 
even flowers, that is the test of the tree. Every tree 



310 



THE CHRISTIANAS LIFE. 



that bringeth not forth good fruit shall be cut down, 
and cast into the fire. 

Alive to this, what good we should do 1 how busy 
we should be ! There would be no time for sin ; little 
even for rest. Rest? We have often thought we 
should like a time of rest, , ere leaving this busy world 
— a quiet corner, in the decline of life, like the straw 
or twig that, after being tossed about in the roaring 
torrent, floats aside into a smooth and placid pool, to 
sail round and round in seeming, serene enjoyment. 
But rest ! what have we to do with that ? From his 
cradle to the grave, did Christ ever rest ? Does God 
ever rest ? " My Father worketh hitherto, and I work," 
said our Lord. If you must have rest, wait a little 
while : your weary body will find it in the grave, and 
your spirit in yon blessed skies. Earth for work, 
heaven for wages — this life for the battle, another for 
the crown — time for employment, eternity for enjoy- 
ment. " There remaineth a rest for the people of God." 
Rise then to the duties and dignity of your Christian 
calling ! Let every man and woman, I and you, the 
humblest of you, feel that they have a mission, a great 
mission on earth. Till then let us work at our mis- 
sion ; seeking to make this wretched world better than 
we found it, and, in good and holy works, to leave our 
" footprints on the sands of time." 

Are you saved yourself? seated above the boiling 
sea, safe on the Rock of Ages? Then reach down 
your hand to pull up this, and that other drowning 
wretch. I would rather see a man, with eager eye and 
outstretched arm, bending down to draw others up ou 



THE CHRISTIAN^ LIFE. 



311 



the rock, than see him on his knees thanking God for 
his own escape and safety — the one were more God's 
work than the other. Christian men and women ! the 
misery of this world, the sorrows you can heal, the 
wretchedness you can relieve, the habits you can im- 
prove, the wrongs you can redress, the happiness you 
can bestow, the souls you can save, call you to work. 

And what the love of Christ requires, and the Bible 
enjoins, its revelations of the future encourage us to 
do. Grand prophecies wait fulfilment. The world's 
best days are yet to come. Whether we help it on or not, 
the time approaches when eager crowds shall throng 
the gates of mercy, and sinners shall flee to their 
Saviour like doves to their windows — and not politi- 
cally only but spiritually, nations shall be born in a 
day — and converts be numerous in this island, and over 
all the world, as the dews that from the womb of the 
morning top every spike of grass, and hang, like pend- 
ant diamonds, sparkling on every branch. Lend your 
prayers, your money, your time, your help in every 
form to that glorious cause. Go, work : work for the 
God that loved you ; work for the Saviour that bled 
for you ; work for the world that, sinking, appeals to 
you for help — your motto "The love of Christ con- 
straineth us ; because we thus judge, that if one died 
for all, then were all dead : and that he died for all, 
that they which live should not henceforth live unto 
themselves, but unto him which died for them, and rose 
again." 



* Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord." — Rev. xiv. 1&, 

The plateau, or raised ocean bed, which stretches 
across the Atlantic between Great Britain and America, 
and along which they laid the lines that were to unite 
two worlds together, and flash our messages over the 
bed of the sea, is covered, to some depth, with a fine 
impalpable powder. To the naked eye, when brought 
up from the depths of the sea and dried, it looks like 
dust ; mere dust, devoid alike of beauty, and organiza- 
tion. But under the microscope how it changes ! It 
is a cabinet of the most beautiful shells ; each of them 
once the habitation of a creature exceedingly minute. 
Their home was in the upper regions of the sea ; and 
when they died, their shells became their coffins, and, 
sinking many thousand fathoms down, they found a 
grave in the ocean bed. It has taken the dust and 
burial of many generations to raise the mould on the 
walls of that old, sacred ruin, around which the rude 
forefathers of the hamlet sleep ; but how many ages 
must have elapsed before the coffins and corpses of 
creatures so exceedingly small, could have raised the 
broad bed of ocean ? To account for this phenomenon 
it is necessary to suppose that these animalculae are 

(812) 



THE CHRISTIAN^ DEATH. 



313 



falling in showers, by night and day, through summer, 
winter, seed-time, and harvest ; dropping down into 
their graves in numbers many as the drops of summer 
rain, or the snow-flakes of a winter storm. If so, how 
great the profusion of life in the vast ocean 1 

This is one of the last, and not the least interesting 
of the evidences that go to prove how this world teems 
with life. You find these indeed everywhere. Turn 
where you may, you meet with life in some one of its 
many forms. Not detected by the naked eye, but 
wisely, kindly concealed from it, you devour it in every 
morsel ; you inhale it in every breath ; you drink it in 
the cup filled at the mountain spring ; you bathe in it 
among the billows of the briny ocean. Walking wild 
moor, or shaggy mountain, or flowery meadow, at every 
step your foot goes down on life. It sleeps the winter 
through in every bud ; opens in every flower-bud ; 
dances and quivers in every leaf ; and rises before you 
in every spike of grass. Where is life not ? More 
changeful than the fabled Proteus, it assumes innumer- 
able shapes. There it cleaves the air on feathery 
wing ; there cleaves the deep with fins ; there crawls 
forth in the slimy worm ; and there stands before you 
in the majesty of the human form. Here it breathes 
in vile corruption ; and there plays and dances in the 
pure light of sunbeams. Water cannot drown it* 
Earth cannot bury it. Open the secrets of the grave 
— for a moment— life is there ; penetrating the domain 
of death, it seizes on the lifeless body, and takes pos- 
session of the tomb. We can say to it what David 
said to its great Giver, " Whither shall I flee from thy 
14 



314 



THE CHRISTIANAS DEATH. 



presence? Thou hast beset me behind and before. 
Thou compassest my path." 

Common as life is, death, its counterpart, though less 
apparent, is not less common. As if it were the shadow 
which life casts upon the ground, there, along with it, 
goes that dark, unsocial, dumb companion. For though 
not coeval, death is co-existent with life ; so that wher- 
ever you find the one in this world, you find the other. 
Is it not the fate of all that lives to die ? We forget 
this. Some like, and try to forget it ; and, indeed, all 
of us are too prone to do so, turning to an irreligious 
use that beautiful, and kind, and beneficial arrange- 
ment, whereby God, for death is not lovely, provides 
that the evidences of it shall not long remain to dis- 
figure this fair creation. You may walk a whole day 
in the crowded city, nor once meet a nodding hearse, 
or poverty's plainest funeral. I have walked down a 
long summer day across moor, mountain, and woodland, 
nor seen a sign of death. No shriek of pain, nor 
groan of agony, disturbed the melody of nature ; and 
where the merry cricket chirped among the grass, and 
the lark sang in bright skies, and cattle lowed in fra- 
grant pastures, and its silver tenants leaped and played 
in the stream, and flowers with their ten thousand 
golden censers offered up odours of praise to God, and 
all nature rejoiced and revelled in the possession of 
life, no withering skeleton crumbled beneath my feet. 
No sign of death was there. As if God had not only 
no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but no pleasure 
in the death of any creature, its evidences, the foot- 
steps of this fell destroyer, are speedily effaced. Let 



THE CHRISTIAN'S DEATH. 



815 



bird or beast fall, and curious creatures come creeping 
forth to do the sexton's office ; the denizens of air and 
earth seize on the lifeless body ; so that if death is 
quick to seize on life, life is no less quick to seize on 
death — nature covering with a green and flowery 
shroud all that moulders and decays ; changing foul 
corruption into beauty, and the lifeless corpse of one 
creature into the pregnant womb of ten thousand lives ! 
Yet though life is thus a far more apparent thing than 
death, the one is as common as the other. The fate 
of all that your eye looks on, is to die. You never 
see a flower to admire its beauty, but it shall die. In 
the Crystal Palace, in the trunk of a mighty pine, 
stands the noblest specimen of the vegetable world 
that man has looked on, or that has fallen to his hand. 
Towering more than three hundred feet above the 
ground, it had seen three times three hundred years, 
ere the forest resounded to its groans, and the axe of 
the woodman had laid its head in the dust. Still, in 
these blows, man but anticipated the hand of time. 
Before his scythe all things go down. There is not a 
tree that grows, nor a bird that sings, nor a flower that 
blooms, nor a child that laughs, nor a man that toils, 
nor anything that lives, but is doomed to die. 

The penalty of sin, bitter fruit of man's unsanctified 
ambition, death hangs over all of us. Ten, twenty, 
fifty years after this where shall we be ? A few brief 
years, and not this or that congregation only shall be 
changed, but this great city shall have changed all its 
tenants. There is no familiar face you meet on your 
way to church or market, shall be seen then. The 



316 



THE CHRISTIAN'S DEATH. 



Sabbath bells will ring out from city steeples, but they 
shall be rung by other hands, and rung for other wor« 
shippers ; pulpits shall be filled by other preachers, and 
the pews by other worshippers. We go the way of 
all the living. A few years more, and all these ani- 
mated, breathing forms, shall lie still and cold in death, 
mouldering in the silent grave. What says the apos- 
tle? "Death has passed upon all men, for that all 
have sinned." Yet we say with John, Blessed are the 
dead that die in the Lord. 

Before shewing that death, by grace, is changed 
into a blessing, let me observe — 

I. Death is a curse. 

My text, no doubt, says, " Blessed are the dead/' 
still death is a curse. Who has read the poetry of 
Milton but knows that, with a poet e license, he repre- 
sents Death as the son of the ikml^ begotten in the 
womb of Sin. He pictures Satan, on his flight to our 
world, as encountering two strange and terrible ob' 
jects at the gates of hell : — 

" Before the gates there sat 
On either side a formidable shape ; 
The one seemed woman to the waist, and fair, 
But ended foul in many a scaly fold 
Voluminous and vast ; a serpent armed 
With mortal sting. The other shape, 
If shape it might be called that shape had none 
Distinguished in member, joint or limb ; 
Or substance might be called that shadow seemed, 
For each seemed either ; black it stood as night, 
Fierce as ten Furies, terrible as hell, 
And shook a dreadful dart. What seemed his head, 
The likeness of a kingly crown had on." 



THE CHRISTIAN^ DEATH. 



317 



Sin, the half lovely woman, half scaly reptile, who 
as porteress guarded the gates of hell, thus explains to 
to Satan the name and history of the other crowned 
and armed monster : — 

" Pensive here I sat 
Alone ; but long I sat not, till my womb 
Pregnant by thee, and now excessive grown, 
Prodigious motion felt and rueful throes. 
At last this odious offspring whom thou seest, 
Thine own begotten, breaking violent away, 
Tore through my entrails, that with fear and pain 
Distorted, all my nether shape thus grew 
Transformed ; but he my inbred enemy 
Forth issued, brandishing his fatal dart, 
Made to destroy. I fled, and cried out, Death ! 
Hell trembled at the hideous name, and sighed 
From all her caves, and back resoundec? Death 1" 

In that picture Milton embodies a very common no- 
tion, and common error. For many people fancy that 
there was no death till there was sin in the world ; 
and misunderstanding the apostle's observation " death 
by sin" — which applies only to man — they extend it 
out and beyond him ; making it embrace the whole 
of this world's creation. In regard to the lower 
animals, as well as to man, they believe there never 
was death till there was sin ; and that by sin, man's 
sin, came death on them. Now, no person of common 
intelligence can open a shark's mouth and look at 
those rows of tremendous teeth, can look at the broad 
paw and claws of the lion, can examine the talons of 
an eagle, or the beautiful mechanism of a serpent'a 
fang, with its poison-bag, and the groove by which the 



318 



THE CSKISTIAN's DEATH. 



fatal drop enters into the wound — but he must see 
that death, in point of time, preceded sin. Unless 
these animals, which were before man, were made for 
the very purpose of living by killing, why were they 
armed with such instruments of destruction ? In the 
original plan of the divine government, God evidently 
took death into his arrangements ; laid his account with 
death ; provided for it, planned for it — death as much 
as life being one of his purposes, and forming an essen- 
tial part of his plan in the government of the world. 

It is not expressly stated in the Bible that there 
was death before sin ; but though I do not find that 
in God's word, I find it in what is as good. I read it 
plainly written in God's works. I have the testimony 
of the Bible to this, that " death reigned from Adam 
to Moses f but although I have not the same testi- 
mony to this, that death, which reigned long before 
Moses, reigned long before Adam too, I have what is 
equally divine — the testimony of the rocks. It is 
written there on tables of stone, in letters legible as 
those which Moses brought with him from the mount. 
On turning over these stony leaves of Natural Keve- 
lation, we read of death that was, long before Adam 
was ; we find its evidence in the remains of monstrous 
creatures that, armed with tremendous powers of des- 
truction, turned this world into a vast scene of battle 
and of death, long before Eden bloomed ; and whose 
bones were entombed in the rocks, where the convul- 
sions of nature buried them, long ages before Adam 
was made. Why there should be death when there 
was no sin, is a difficulty I cannot solve. I do not 



THE CHRISTIAN'S DEATH. 



319 



pretend to give the question a satisfactory answer. 
It is a mystery. But so are many things else. It 
is a mystery why the dumb creatures should cry, 
and howl, and groan, under sufferings that often 
move our pity. It is a mystery to me why a benig- 
nant and benevolent God, that could have no plea- 
sure in the pain of any creature, inflicted it on an 
innocent creation. And it is a mystery, perhaps, 
even to the intellects of angels, why that should 
suffer which never sinned. Still we can perceive a 
manifest difference between the death of these crea- 
tures and that of man. It is when death extends its 
ravages to him that it rises into a curse. " The 
sting of death is sin." That has armed his dart. 

The lower creatures die, but with how little pain ! 
in what happy ignorance ! Death springs on them 
with a tiger's leap. The coming event casts no sha- 
dow before. I have seen a lamb go gambolling on its 
way to the slaughter-house, cropping the wayside flow- 
ers. No vision of the butcher and his axe disturbs 
the ox, as he browses contented in abundant pastures. 
See this pale mother, her brow clouded with care as 
she trims the lamp by the cradle of her withering 
child ! She is to be pitied. But no fear dashes the 
joy of yon mother bird that embraces her nestlings in 
her wings ; or, seated on the bending spray on a sweet 
summer eve, sings her young to sleep. The prospect 
of death never alarms either beast or bird. The 
groans of a dying steed do not disturb the feast of 
his fellow in the neighbouring stall. The dead body 
of their own kindred never suggests the idea that 



320 



THE CHRISTIAN'S DEATH. 



they also are to die ; and fills them with dread of 
their approaching fate. Thus, there is no curse, so to 
speak, in their death ; no dread hereafter. Happy 
creatures ! they enjoy life unembittered by the fear of 
losing it ; and when it is lost, they part with it in 
most instances with very little pain ; sometimes with 
none at all. 

It is otherwise with us. The bravest men are afraid 
of death ; and true bravery lies not in insensibility 
to its terrors, but in facing what we fear. It is an 
easy thing for a soldier, amid the whirl and excitement 
of a battle-field, to dash on the serried bayonets ; but 
shew me the man, unless a true, lofty, strong-minded 
Christian, who will, calmly, and coolly, and undaunt- 
edly, meet his dying hour. Ah ! this fate, from which 
nature shrinks with instinctive horror, tries the cour- 
age of the bravest, and the piety of the best of men. 
The great mass of mankind are undeniably afraid to 
meet death ; to stand face to face, and front to front, 
with the King of Terrors. Afraid to meet him ? they 
are afraid even to think of him ! Trembling to hear 
his hand knocking at a neighbour's door, they take 
alarm, and are ready to fly at his approach. They do 
not quarrel with grey hairs so much because they spoil 
their beauty, as because, like the snow powdered on 
mountain heights that proclaims the approach of win- 
ter, they are the unwelcome heralds of death and a 
grave. And why are thousands in this world, perhaps 
some of us, happy ? The secret of your gay and light- 
hearted humour is this — you are hopeful that you will 
not die to day ; no, nor to-morrow ; nor next we<*V ; 



THE CHRISTIAN'S DEATH. 321 

nor for another year. Talk of the ills of poverty, ex« 
ile, disease, calumny ; evils of human life as they are, 
they all make way for death. Trampling under his 
feet kingly crowns and dear-bought laurels, flowering 
hopes and loving, bleeding hearts — he marches at the 
head of all human ills — crowned, by the universal con- 
sent of mankind, the King of Terrors. " Skin for 
skin," said the devil — and for once the father of liars 
spake the truth — " Skin for skin, all that a man hath 
will he give for his life." Yes. Let men brave death 
as they may, or rather may pretend to do, it is an 
awful curse. A doom to all but Christian faith in- 
tolerable, it admits no true comfort, but the hope of 
salvation by the blood of Christ. Have you that? 
Happy are you ! I congratulate you. Though you 
were a beggar, happy are you ! If you have it not, 
I would not change places with you ; not for a thou- 
sand worlds. 

Separate and apart from the consolations of Chris- 
tian faith, death is a tremendous evil. Nature shrinks 
from it, shuddering. I do not like to think of being a 
cold, pale, inanimate form of clay, unconscious of the 
love and grief of all around me ; screwed down into 
a narrow coffin ; borne away from my cheerful home ; 
and when the green sod has been beaten down above 
me, left, not by enemies, but by those I loved, to be 
the food of vile worms, and lie mouldering in the silent 
grave. Nor is that all ; the grave is the land of ob- 
livion ; and who does not shrink from the thought 
of being forgotten ? We may be remembered some 
little time witliin the family circle, and now and then a 
14* 



322 



THE CHRISTIAN'S DEATH. 



sigh may be heaved over our memory, and now and 
then a tear may be dropped on our grave ; but ere 
many years we shall be forgotten by all — even though 
the grave may not close over us as the waters over a 
sinking ship, that in going down makes a surging swell, 
but soon leaves the billows to pursue their course, or 
the placid sea to become smooth again. Then who but 
shrinks from the thought of being torn from those he 
loves ? of leaving the cheerful voices and bright coun- 
tenances of his family circle to keep companionship 
with those dumb, grim tenants of the grave, that lie 
there for years, and centuries, but never exchange a 
word ? Then God has made this body beautiful ; and 
I do not like to see the sad ravages that age, still less 
the awful ruin that death works on us. Then God has 
made me to love life ; and I love it ; the bright sky j 
the song of the birds ; merry voices ; cheerful faces ; 
nor do I like to think of being laid in that narrow, 
black pit among yellow skulls and mouldering bones. 
Profess what men like, flesh and blood shrink from 
that. Nor, believe me, is there any mere earth-born 
and earth-supported power that can stand by an open 
grave, and look down to speak of it, as a bed of sweet 
and peaceful rest. 

Besides these sad imaginings, the sufferings that 
usually attend the close of life and gather like heavy 
clouds around its setting sun, make death a curse. 
Some are, so to speak, translated like Enoch. Last 
evening, on the street, at his post of duty, amid his 
family, the good man " was ; " the chariot with silent 
wheels comes to his door at the dead of night ; he is 



THE CHRISTIAN'S DEATH. 



323 



borne away before lie has time to wake ; never tasting 
death, he is in glory before he knows, and is woke to 
consciousness, not by the song of birds that welcome 
in the spring, but of angels welcoming him to the pres- 
ence of his Saviour and to the glories of heaven : and 
they tell how next morning they found the body lying 
calm in death — " He was not, for God took him. r Happy 
fate to a true believer ! notwithstanding that in the beau- 
tiful litany of the Church of England they pray, " from 
plague and pestilence, from battle, murder, and sudden 
death, good Lord, deliver us." But such cases are 
rare. In the ordinary providence of God many weary 
days and nights precede the closing scene. Anticipate 
it ! Think what agonies may then rack our frame ! 
and how our last hours may resemble those of one in 
combat with an invisible enemy, that with hand clutch- 
ing his throat, is choking him ! In most cases, death 
presents the unmistakable features of a tremendous 
curse ; being attended with sufferings which, however 
unpleasant to think of, it is well to anticipate, that we 
may loe prepared for the worst, and, fortified by faith, 
may stand the rude shocks of dissolution, possessing 
our souls in patience and in peace. And where faith in 
Jesus raises a dying man above the sufferings of na- 
ture, and a, sinful man above the terrors of guilt, il- 
luminating the closing scene with the hopes and very 
light of approaching glory, this close of life is the 
grandest of sunsets. Nowhere, does religion look so 
magnificent as amid such scenes. And never does she 
seem so triumphant as when, with her fingers closing 
the filmy eyes, she contemplates the peaceful corpse ; 



524 



THE CHRISTIAN^ DEATH. 



and bending down to take one fond kiss of pallid lipa, 
or marble brow, rises, and raising her hands to heaven, 
exclaims, Blessed are the dead ! The battle done ; the 
victory won ; rest, warrior ! workman ! pilgrim ! — 
rest ! " Blessed are the dead which die in the Loi i ; 
for they rest from their labours, and their works do 
follow them." 

II. Death is a blessing. 

How true these words — "Blessed are the dead 
which die in the Lord !" Die in the Lord ! That ia 
a remarkable expression ; but one that corresponds 
with others in the word of God. For example : the 
apostle Paul sometimes speaks of us "being in the 
Lord," and sometimes of the Lord " being in us." He 
says, for instance, " Christ in us the hope of glory." 
Elsewhere also he uses this remarkable expression : 
" Nevertheless, I live ; yet not I, but Christ liveth in 
me." Now, whether the expression be, that " Christ ia 
in us," or that " we are in Christ," the meaning is thus 
far the same, that both expressions are used to des- 
cribe that intimate, spiritual, indissoluble, eternal union 
which is formed by faith between the Saviour and the 
saved. A union that, more intimate than marriage 
which unfaithfulness in either party dissolves ; a union 
that, more intimate than the connection between body 
and soul which a slight accident may endanger, which 
an ounce of lead, an inch of steel, a drop of poison, a 
wrong step, the hand of a child may dissolve ; a union 
that, more intimate than binds together those sections 
of the church which, though differing, co-operate. 



THE CHRISTIAN'S DEATH. 



325 



The union which is formed between Christ and his 
people being one of incorporation, and not one merely 
of co-operation what the one is, the other is ; and 
where the one is, the other is ; and as the one feels, 
the other feels ; and as our bodies and their limbs have 
blood in common, or the branches and trunk of a tree 
have sap in common, so Jesus and his people have all 
things in common. " All mine is thine," he says — his 
Father, ours ; his merit, ours ; his righteousness, ours ; 
his victory, ours ; his glory, ours. A rich inheritance 
indeed ! And as we were in Adam on that day when, 
standing by the fatal tree, and before the beautiful 
temptress, he took of fruit forbidden, and ate, and 
sinned, and fell, all of us falling in his fall ; so, on that 
other and better day, when the Son of Man stood by 
another tree, giving his hands to the nails, and his side 
to the spear, and his brow to the thorns, and his soul 
to the wrath of God due for sin, we were in him. As 
I was condemned in Adam on the day of the fall, a 
believer in Christ, in him I satisfied divine justice be- 
fore earth and heaven ; in him I triumphed on the 
cross ; in him, on the third day of burial, I left the 
tomb, rising in anticipation of the hour when the dead 
shall wake to the sound of the trumpet ; and, rising in 
Christ, mortal shall put on immortality, and those 
whom once Satan conquered, and sin enslaved, shall be. 
crowned with victory. 

To be in Christ, therefore, to be in the Lord, implies 
that we shall infallibly enjoy all the blessings, tempo- 
ral, spiritual, and eternal, which he shed his blood to 
^orchase ; these being secured to us by the great oatli 



826 



THE CHRISTIAN'S DEATH. 



of God, and the bonds of a covenant which is well 
ordered in all things and sure. What more could we 
have ; could we wish for than this ? To be in Christ 
is to be in his Father's bosom, to be his beloved chil- 
dren — all sin forgiven — sure of the supply of every 
want on earth ; and sure of heaven at last ; for where 
the head is, all the members of the body shall sooner 
or later be. With Christ we shall be crowned and 
throned in glory. 

Well then may the apostle say, " Blessed are the 
dead which die in the Lord I" They are blessed. 
They must be blessed. How can it be otherwise? 
" Die I" No doubt they must die ; but death has lost 
its sting ; and it does not matter when, or how, or 
where they die. The dying is nothing, if they are in 
the Lord ; whether they die in their bed, among holy 
prayers and blessed voices ; or die in battle, amid 
thundering cannon ; or die like a martyr, swinging in 
the air ; or die whelmed in the deep, with the rush of 
waters in their drowning ears. Dying in the Lord, 
they are blessed. It has proved a comfort to a sink- 
ing child, to feel a kind mother's arms around it ; to 
expire with its head resting on her bosom. And when 
candles burned dim and the mists of death were gath- 
ering thick over the eyes, I have heard the dying, una- 
ble to see, ask if some loved one was near ; and I have 
felt their hand grasp my own, as if, on passing through 
the deep waters, there was some stay even in a human 
hand. But oh ! in that coming hour, may God give us 
to feel that we have a firm hold of Christ ; that our 
head is lying on his blessed bosom ; that his own kind 



THE CHRISTIAN'S DEaTH. 



327 



hand is wiping away nature's last, bitter tears ! Be- 
yond the tender accents of a mother's, or wife's, or 
child's, or any human voice, oh ! how blessed it will be 
to hear Jesus whispering, " Fear not, for I am with 
thee. Be not afraid, for I am thy God." We may be 
ready to shrink back, saying, Ah, Lord ! the water is 
dark ; the stream is cold, and deep ! How blessed 
then to hear him say. Go forward ; fear not. I have 
redeemed thee. When thou passest through the wa- 
ters, I will be with thee ; and through the rivers, they 
shall not overflow thee : when thou walkest through 
the fire, thou shalt not be burned ; neither shall the 
flame kindle upon thee. For I am the Lord thy God, 
the Holy one of Israel, thy Saviour. 

Believer, let the world shrink from death — not you. 
Familiarize your mind with that inevitable event! 
Think of it, as life ! Gloomy though the portal seems, 
death is the gate of life to a good and pious man. 
Think of it, therefore, not as death, but as glory — 
going to heaven and to your father. Eegard it in the 
same light as the good man who said when I expressed 
my sorrow to see him sinking into the grave, " I am 
going home." If you will think of it as death, then 
let it be as the death of sin ; the death of pain ; the 
death of fear ; the death of care ; the death of Death. 
Regard its pangs and struggles as the battle that 
goes before victory ; its troubles as the swell of the 
sea on heaven's happy shore ; and yon gloomy passage 
as the cypress-shaded avenue that shall conduct your 
steps to heaven. It is life through Christ, and life in 
Christ ; life most blissful, and life evermore. Ho* 



328 



THE CHRISTIAN'S DEATH. 



much happier and holier we should be if we could look 
on death in that light. I have heard people say, that 
we should think each morning that we may be dead 
before night ; and each night that we may be dead 
before morning ! True : yet how much better to think 
every morning, I may be in heaven before night ; and 
every night that the head is laid on the pillow, and the 
eyes are closed for sleep, to think, Next time I open 
them it may be to look on Jesus, and the land where 
there is no night, nor morning ; nor sunset, nor cloud ; 
nor grave, nor grief ; nor sin, nor death, nor sorrow ; 
nor toil, nor trouble ; where " they rest from their 
labours, and their works do follow them. 

III. Death is a blessing as introducing us into a state 
of rest. 

1. At death the believer rests from the toils of life. 

Not that a moderate measure of labour, either of 
the hands or of the brain, is a curse ; or even a mis- 
fortune from which we should desire exemption. Other 
creatures, as well as man, have to earn their bread ; 
some in the air, where from morn to dewy eve the 
swallow is on the wing ; some in pastures, where herds 
of cattle roam from field to field, and herds of deer 
from hill to hill ; some in the waters, whose silvery 
tenants flash through stream and pool ; and some be- 
neath the soil, where the mole, mining in darkness, like 
death, shews his progress by the mounds he throws up. 
And like them, our bodies were made for working, as 
our brains were for thinking, our eyes for seeing, and 
our ears for hearing. Nor is the workman's life the 



THE CHRISTIAN'S DEATH. 



329 



least agreeable ; if toil has its hardships, it has its ad- 
vantages — in health, for instance, strong in frames ac- 
customed to labour, and glowing in cheeks that are 
kissed by the winds and browned by the sun of heaven* 

Corne hither, ye that press your beds of down, 
And sleep not : see him sweating o'er his bread 
Before he eats it. "Tis the primal curse 
But softened into mercy : made the pledge 
Of cheerful days, and nights without a groan. 

Yet, though labor is the best medicine for health 
the best stimulant for a happy humour, the best 
opiate for sleep ; and though fullness of bread and 
abundance of idleness, the curse of Sodom, is a danger 
from which the upper classes, and many, indeed, who 
are exempt from the necessity of working for their 
daily bread need to protect themselves by devoting 
their time to the cause of philanthropy, or some de- 
partment of the public service, death brings a happy 
relief to those whose hard and humble lot chain them 
like slaves to the oar of toil. Their circumstances 
doom many to such excess of labour as exhausts the 
energies both of body and mind. Little better than 
animated machines, they live to work, and work to 
live, their minds lying, like waste land, uncultivated — ■ 
like a gold mine with no time to dig it. The book, the 
very Bible, at evening worship, drops from the weary 
hand, and drowsiness steals over the senses of one who 
kneels for mercy at the throne of grace. Such toils 
degrade the higher part of our nature, if they do not 
make life a burden ; and while they make the Sabbath, 



330 



THE CHRISTIAN S DEATH. 



with its rest, a precious boon to thousands, they unfit 
us for its lively enjoyment. From these death dis- 
charges the weary labourer, and brings him welcome 
relief. A child of God, he enters into rest. To him 
in the grave " there is rest for the weary f and what 
a blessed change to the pious occupant of many a hum- 
ble, country cottage, of dingy room in the obscure lanes 
of the crowded city, when the head, once bent over the 
soil, or the loom, shall be lifted up and crowned with 
sjlory among the acclamations of angels, and in the 
presence of God. Hope of better things, and submis- 
sion to your father's will — teaching you to say with 
Paul, I have learned in whatsoever state I am there- 
with to be content — work on without repining, now 
and then lifting your eye to heaven ! Death's cold, 
clammy sweat, is the last that shall stand on a good 
man's brow. Son of toil, when thou hast breathed out 
thy life, thy work is done, and an eternal Sabbath 
begun ! 

2. At death the believer rests from the cares of life. 

Next to sin, these form life's heaviest burden. 
Money is a cure for poverty, and medicine for sick- 
ness ; time closes grief's bleeding wounds ; peace sends 
the soldier home ; and when the bell strikes, the 
labourer drops his tools, and, in sports or books, or 
company, or among his prattling children, forgets awhile 
his toil — when the day's work is done, it is done. But 
cares are bosom burdens which we carry with us. Their 
spring is in the heart, and they rise like water to fill 
the well anew so soon a3 it is emptied. 

People complain of providence, and are discontented 



THE CHRISTIAN'S DEATH. 331 



with their lot. It is so full of cares ! It is not their 
lot, but themselves that are full of cares. We blame 
God for evils which we ourselves create, like the child 
whose fears create the spectres that give terror to a 
dark bedroom, and chase away sleep. Would we lie 
in the bosom of Providence as confidingly as a child 
in its mother's, had we such faith as God encourages 
us to cherish, we would shake off our cares as a lark 
does the dew drops from her feathers ; or a lion the 
dew from his mane. If God had thrown up the helm 
and left the management of our fortunes to us, or if 
Christ had gone to sleep in heaven as he did in the 
boat on the sea of Galilee, or if the rising of every 
sun in the east, and the swelling of every tide on the 
shore, if the lightsome song of every little bird, and 
the beautiful dress of every little flower, as it steps 
out on this world, did not proclaim the providence and 
care of God, we might and must carry the burden of 
our own cares. But the Lord reigneth ! We are to 
cast our cares on him ; and the more we lay on him, 
the more shall we find that his promises and faithful- 
ness possess that remarkable property of the arch, by 
virtue of which the more the arch is loaded, the firmer 
it stands. 

How strange that any who can trust God's mercy 
for their eternal salvation should not be able to trust 
his providence for daily bread ; for blessings he be- 
stows even on the wicked and ungodly ! If " God 
spared not his own son, shall he not with him also 
freely give us all things ?" There is a logic in that 
question, level to the humblest understanding ; and a 



332 the christian's death. 

love that should make us careful for nothing. But 
faith is often weak, and man is fearful ; and so our life 
has many a troubled dream that fills those with fears 
and terrors who are all the while safely folded in a 
Father's arms. Like ghosts, these shall vanish when 
the morning breaks, and we enter on eternal day. 
There will be nothing in the household above to with- 
draw Martha from sitting with her sister at Jesus' feet 
— there Jacob mourns no Joseph, and David weeps no 
Absolom ; the pious widow dreads no empty barrel ; 
Lazarus fears no rich man's frown, nor courts his fa- 
vour ; the ungodly wring no tears from the eyes of 
Paul, nor is he burdened with the care of churches • 
nor mother with the care of infants ; nor fathers witn 
the care of families ; nor merchants with the cares of 
business. The cares of the journey belong to the road. 
They cease when we arrive at home. 

3. At death the believer rests from the griefs of life. 

God's people are often sorely tried. No wonder He 
intends them for great honours ; and so he puts a great 
deal of work on them. By successive trials they are 
thus cleansed from all the scum and dregs of sin ; that 
they may be thoroughly purified, they are emptied, as 
it were, from vessel to vessel. Through their suffer- 
ings he baptizes them with the Holy Ghost as with 
fire ; dealing with them as the jeweller with gold that, 
intended for no vulgar use, and set with diamonds, and 
rubies, and emeralds, and pearls, and all manner of 
precious stones, is to form the framework of a crown. 
He purifies that seven times in the fire. And " many 
are the afflictions of the righteous ; but tne Lord will 



the christian's dea^h. 333 

deliver him out of them ;" if never before, at death. 
Death cures all griefs ; and his own best physic and 
physician, he applies the most healing balm to the 
wounds his own hands have made. For " to be absent 
from the body" is not only " to be present with the 
Lord," but with those friends of ours, and friends of 
his whom death had snatched from our reluctant arms. 
The dying seldom weep even when all around them are 
dissolved in tears ; the dead in Christ never. They 
weep for the dead no more. Why should they ? 
Death has restored them to their society ; and how 
pleasant to think of being again united to those we 
loved on earth ; and of embracing, after years of 
separation, our parents, our brothers, and sisters, and 
children, and dear friends, all unchanged, but that they 
are more lovely and more loving. The brightest pros- 
pect a parent can cherish for his children, the happiest 
end he can work, and pray, and toil for, is not to see 
them great but good ; heirs, not of estates, but " of the 
kingdom ; " to meet them all in heaven — the storms 
and dangers of life past, every one of that scattered 
fleet, one after another, entering the port, and all at 
length safely anchored in the desired haven. 

Between many believers and the full happiness of 
those that die in the Lord, there may be much suffer- 
ing ; much toil and trouble before entering on the 
promised rest. The steepest part of a hill is com- 
monly nearest the top. The green sward, the gentle 
slopes, the bubbling springs, with their bright mossy 
carpets, the grateful songs and shade of woods lie be- 
low ; while up by the summit the air is keen, the vege- 



334 



THE CHRISTIAN'S DEATH. 



tation dwarfed and scanty, and the steep severe. Pant- 
ing, with short steps and shorter breath, the traveller 
climbs upward to find the last part of the journey the 
hardest ; and as he throws himself down on the sum- 
mit, he welcomes its grateful rest. It is so with life. 
Old age, with its flagging spirits and short, feeble steps, 
with its torpid faculties and growing infirmities, with 
losses that have each left a wound in our hearts, and 
griefs that have each drawn a furrow on our brow, is, 
unless sustained by the consolations and hopes of re- 
ligion, a dark and dreary time. Yet good people wish 
to be spared to old age, and many aged saints have re- 
joiced in their recovery ; and clung to life, when it 
was little desirable, like trees that take a stronger hold 
of the naked rock than of a fertile soil. Strange ! 
since old age, bereft of the briskness of youth and 
strength of manhood, is apt to become stale, flat, and 
unprofitable ; and, unless grace corrects its tendencies, 
like old wine, grows sour. Men talk of venerable 
ruins, and admire old castles, and hoary, mouldering 
trees ; and affections may cling to the human ruin, 
close and green, and beautiful as the ivy which man- 
tles some crumbling tower ; yet it is sad to see man's 
noble form bent with decrepitude, strength changed 
into tottering weakness, the fire quenched in the eye, 
perhaps the eclipse of reason, and the second child- 
hood that excites a melancholy smile. Happy was 
Moses, on whose head one hundred and twenty winters 
had shed no snows ; blending the wisdom of age with 
the spirit of youth, he was an old man without the 
nsual infirmities of years : so that on the day of his 



THE CHRISTIAN'S DEATH. 



335 



death " his eye was not dim, neither was his natural 
strength abated." 

Some, their sun setting at noon, escape the pains and 
infirmities that cloud the evening of life ; but few es- 
cape those dying troubles that break like a rough swell 
on the shores of the better land, and make many shrink 
back from entering them who ha re a good hope of 
heaven. Our text, thank God, has virtues to deprive 
these of their terrors ; and work such change as man's 
invention works on the heavy rollers that beat the 
coasts of Africa, and threaten to swamp the stoutest 
boats that venture to the shore. However smooth the 
sea along the coast, and someway off land, close in 
shore, in the calmest day, great white breakers line 
the beach ; defending it, and deterring the weary voy- 
ager from a land, whose green and graceful foliage 
tempts him ashore, and whose fragrant spices float out 
to him on the wings of gentle winds. But how to land 
in safety ? It can be done ; — is done. The boat is 
cautiously brought up to the edge of the roaring swell ; 
then from its bows they empty a vessel of oil on the 
angry deep. Borne landward, what a wondrous change 
it works I The surge goes down before it ; it forms 
a smooth, and glassy, and narrow passage to the shore ; 
and, with breakers on either hand, roaring in thunders, 
and foaming in impotent rage, the boat leaps forward 
to the bending oars, glides along the surface of this 
strip of calm sea, and but softly heaved on the bosom of 
a gentle swell, is run up in safety on the beach. Even 
so may death be disarmed of terrors, the sight of which 
is so apt to cool our eagerness to reach the blessed land. 



336 



THE CHRISTIAN'S DEATH. 



The hope of a man-child bore the Hebrew mother 
bravely through her pangs. Liberty has been consid- 
ered an ample recompense for all the blood, and suffer- 
ing amid which it was born. The relief which we ex- 
pect to follow some most painful operation has made 
the patient impatient for the hour ; and enabled him 
to bear its tortures without a cry or groan. And 
he prepares himself to endure the sufferings of a dy- 
ing hour, and prepares for himself an easy landing 
on the shores of heaven, who learns to regard death, 
in the light of my text, as an introduction to the rest 
that remaineth to the people of God. No more true 
or beautiful way of announcing a good man's death 
than the old-fashioned phrase, He is at rest ! Holy 
in his life, and blessed in his death, he is joined to the 
multitude of whom the elder said, These are they 

WHICH CAME OUT OF GREAT TRIBULATION, AND HAVE 
WASHED THEIR ROBES, AND MADE THEM WHITE IN THE 
BLOOD OF THE LAMB. THEREFORE ARE THEY BEFORE 
THE THRONE OF GOD, AND SERVE HIM DAY AND NIGHT 
IN HIS TEMPLE : AND HE THAT SITTETH ON THE THRONS 
SHALL DWELL AMONG THEM. THEY SHALL HUNGER NG 
MORE, NEITHER SHALL THE SUN LIGHT ON THEM, NOR 
ANY HEAT. FOR THE LAMB WHICH IS IN THE MIDST OF 
THE THRONE SHALL FEED THEM, AND SHALL LEAD THEM 
UNTO LIVING FOUNTAINS OF WATERS : AND GOD SHALL 
WIPE AWAY ALL TEARS FROM THEIR EYES. 



THE END* 



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J2mo, 3J4 pages, cloth, $J.OO. 



E. B. TREAT & CO., PUBLISHERS, 

24J-243 West 23d Street, NEW YORK. 



THOUGHTS FOR THE OCCASION, 

PATRIOTIC AND SECULAR. 

A REPOSITORY OF HISTORICAL DATA AND FACTS, 
GOLDEN THOUGHTS AND WORDS OF WISDOM, 
WHICH CAN ONLY BE FOUND ELSEWHERE 
BY ELABORATE RESEARCH. 

— — 

Helpful in Suggesting Themes and in Outlining and Ar= 
ranging Addresses and Programmes for the Observance 
of Fifteen Holiday Occasions, Called for by Our Cal= 
endar Year; Arbor Day, Independence Day, Decoration 
Day, Labor Day, Washington's Birthday, Etc. 

O — 

Hon. Chauncey M. Depew, writes : " Your book happily 
meets a want frequently felt by speakers who are called upon 
to address an audience upon all sorts of occasionsand have 
little time to look up the literature bearing- upon the subject. 
The book presents in condensed form suggestions which would 
indicate to an orator in a few minutes the spirit of many of 
our important celebrations." 

" The volume will be eagerly sought by those called upon to 
prepare programs in school and out of it for these various pat- 
riotic days."— St. Louis Observer. 

"The selections are from the most eminent authors and 
speakers and leading periodicals of the land, and thus render 
the book a most valuable acquisition to any public or private 
library."— Religious Telescope, Dayton, O, 

F. A.Noble, D.D., of Chicago, writes :—" Thoughts for the 
Occasion," so far as I know, has no mate. It is as valuable as 
it is unique. It will prove of immense advantage to persons 
called upon, perhaps suddenly, to render service through voice 
or pen on the important days indicated. The men and women 
who have charge of our institutions of learning will look upon 
this book as a Godsend. Here is a volume well-nigh unlimited 
in its resources from which to draw thoughts and inspiration 
for exercises on occasions of common and patriotic interest. 
The teacher who cannot make this book help him in his work 
is not fit to be a teacher. 

" Every person who may be called upon to deliver an address 
on any of the above mentioned days will be grateful to the 
compiler of this timely volume. It will be found to be a most 
valuable book of reference."— Buffalo Christian Advocate. 

" Public men, preachers, members of leagues, and associa- 
tions, pupih in schools, everybody who has occasion to make an 
address, or write in recognition of any of cur secular anniver- 
saries, will be grateful for a work that supplies them with facts 
and figures and fancies fr<~m the best sources relating to the 
day to be celebrated. "—Pacific Christian Advocate. 
t2tno, 576 Pages, Cloth Binding, $1.75. 

ANNIVERSARY AND RELIGIOUS, THOUGHTS FOR 
THE OCCASION, a Companion volume to the above, for 
observance of timely occasions and Special Days indicated by 
our Christian Year, s 1 ^ pages. (Six vol. in the series.) $i-75» 



OUR BEST MOODS. 

Soliloquies and Other Discourses, 

By DAVID GREGG, D.D., 

Successor to Theo. L. Culyer, D.D., as Pastor of the 
Lafayette Avenue Presbyterian Church, 
Brooklyn, New York* 



Anything from the pen of one considered worthy to 
be the successor of Dr. Cuyler should attract attention, 
especially as his pastorate is proving eminently success- 
ful, and his pulpit efforts are always original, fresh and 
popular. The discourses in this volume are fair speci- 
mens of his sermonic productions. 



" His words are forcible, his thoughts spiritual, and he also appeals 
strongly to the imagination and intellect of his hearers. His is an 
earnest, cultivated, consecrated mind, and these sermons cannot be laid 
aside among the many volumes of merely ordinary discourses."— i he 
Christian Advocate, N. Y. 

" These sermons are warm, sunny, helpful and hopeful. There is 
a spiritual uplift in them. Though striking and original, they are not 
merely curious utterances ; they are charged with the most important 
Gospel truths, clothed in language at once original and forcible. In 
them we find the word of courage and hope, the stimulus to exertion, 
and the uplift of the whole man into a clearer atmosphere and toward 
the realization of the Christian ideal."— Zion's Herald, Boston. 

"They are the eloquent and forceful utterances of a cultured man, 
alive and alert and able to address himself to the needs of his fellow- 
men. The themes chosen are of practical moment and in their treat- 
ment the preacher never loses sight of his purpose to stimulate men to 
realize the highest ideal of character and life. These are sermonb of a 
high order."— 7 he Observer, N. Y. 

" These sermons are models of direct, svmpathetic, manly, nutri- 
tious, thought-awakening and will-moving discourses. They deal with 
ideas, moods, customs, habits, temptatfons, failures and successes, 
needs and aims of every-day life. They are the products of a thinking 
mmd and a heart aflame with Christian love and Gospel zeal."— Gospel 
Banner, A ugusta^ Me. 



12mo, 362 Pages, Frontispiece Portrait. Cloth, $1 c 25 
Presentation Edition, Vellum Cloth, Gilt Top, $1.75 



DEC 26 1902 



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